MBA Research Supervision in East Africa: A Conceptual Paper on Supervision Competence, Incentives, and Student Preparedness

Research supervision is a critical component of the MBA because it converts classroom knowledge into an applied research capability. Yet supervision in East African universities is constrained by uneven supervisor competence, competing workloads, incentive arrangements, and the preparedness of largely professional and part-time students. This conceptual paper examines MBA research supervision through a management lens, with Uganda as the empirical anchor and evidence from Kenya and Tanzania used to establish regional relevance. It synthesises literature on master’s-level and postgraduate supervision and organises the problem around three interacting inputs: supervisor competence, institutional incentives, and student preparedness. The paper proposes a conceptual model in which these inputs shape supervision processes - availability, feedback, expectation clarity, methodological guidance, and accountability - which in turn influence dissertation quality, timely completion, student research capability, and research integrity. Evidence from Uganda shows that supervisor guidance, feedback, and supervisor–student relationships significantly predict graduate progression, while universities have responded through retooling, coordination, online supervision, and progress tracking. The paper argues that East African business schools should professionalise supervision through competence development, workload recognition, carefully designed incentives, stronger research-methods preparation, explicit supervision contracts, and coaching-oriented practice. The contribution is a coherent management framework for strengthening MBA research supervision in resource-constrained university systems.