Doctoral research · Silk Road Business School
From Transition Asymmetry to Energy Equity
Doctorate in Business Administration — Paris, August 2026
Designing and evaluating an AI-assisted, evidence-traceable decision system that maps national energy transition conditions and makes visible the financial, operational, value-capture, equity, institutional and data-governance asymmetries shaping African energy infrastructure decisions.
- ETAM
- Energy Inclusivity Framework
- EIF-AI DSS
- Design Science Research
- 54 African countries
Problem statement
The transition is not only a technical and financial challenge
Energy transition is commonly framed as a universal technology and financing challenge. In practice, it is an uneven reallocation of industrial advantage, fiscal space and control over critical resources.
Many net-zero strategies in the Global North are accelerating deployment and domestic manufacturing capacity. At the same time, large parts of the Global South remain positioned primarily as suppliers of minerals and land, while carrying a disproportionate share of social, environmental and macroeconomic risk.
This creates a central question for policy and management: is the current wave of decarbonisation producing a broad-based transition, or is it consolidating power and value capture among a narrower set of actors?
Three gaps that remain material for decision-makers
Justice frameworks that stay normative and weakly operational
They describe what ought to be fair, but rarely specify how inclusion is designed into procurement, investment committees, concession agreements, supply chain contracts and data governance arrangements.
Tightly coupled domains studied in isolation
Mineral supply chains, cost of capital, operational performance and digital control mechanisms are frequently studied separately. In project delivery they reinforce each other: a country can hold the resource and the policy ambition and still lose economic value.
A new and under-governed digital asymmetry
Where data is scarce, fragmented or privately owned, planning and financing decisions become dependent on external tools and models. Decision power shifts away from public institutions and local operators, even when physical assets are built domestically.
ETAM · Energy Transition Asymmetry Model
Four structural asymmetries
ETAM synthesises the literature and the case evidence into an operational diagnosis. It shows that transition outcomes depend less on headline ambition and more on the structure of value capture, risk allocation and informational control.
Mineral asymmetry
The decisive issue is not resource ownership in principle, but the ability to translate endowment into processing capacity, standards compliance and negotiated upgrading pathways. Without industrial policy coordination, contract transparency and processing and logistics infrastructure, value capture concentrates upstream.
Financial sovereignty
A persistent cost of capital gap acts as a structural filter. Currency risk, limited long-tenor debt and credit market risk perception make well-structured projects uncompetitive, then push governments and utilities into structures that shift risk back onto consumers or the public balance sheet.
Operational autonomy
Operational asymmetry is a lifecycle trap rather than a one-time delivery issue. Service ecosystems, spare parts logistics and warranty enforcement explain performance decay and extended downtime, which shift recurring value to external service providers.
Data & AI sovereignty
Monitoring platforms, forecasting tools and decision models often sit outside public ownership. Vendor-controlled performance intelligence reduces institutional learning and weakens bargaining position over time.
Cross-cutting synthesis
Elite transition triggers
Asymmetries become critical when they reinforce each other. The research identifies four triggers that tend to co-occur.
- Subsidy and industrial policy architectures that concentrate access among large incumbents.
- Bankability requirements that shift currency and offtake risk onto weaker institutions.
- Procurement and contracting designs that externalise lifecycle performance risk.
- Data arrangements that prevent independent verification and learning.
EIF · Energy Inclusivity Framework
Six pillars that make inclusion measurable
EIF turns the diagnosis into an assessment method usable at three levels: policy design, investment screening and delivery governance. It does not replace emissions accounting, impact assessment or financial appraisal. It asks a different question: given that an intervention may be technically and financially plausible, does it reduce or reproduce structural asymmetry?
Distributional equity
Fair allocation of benefits, costs, risks and access across groups and territories.
Equity score and affected stakeholder benefit-cost map.
Participatory governance
Quality of voice, consent, accountability and grievance mechanisms.
Participation quality indicators and grievance accessibility.
Sovereignty & local value capture
Durable local upgrading, processing capability and strategic autonomy.
Local value-capture score, skills transfer and supplier development.
Affordability & finance
Distributional and fiscal consequences of financial design.
Capital structure, tariff impact, subsidy targeting and affordability flags.
Data & AI rights
Explainability, contestability and proportionality of data and AI functions.
AI-use disclosure, confidence ratings, bias checks and human override.
Resilience & adaptation
Reliability, lifecycle cost and performance under stress conditions.
Resilience envelopes, sensitivity testing and monitoring indicators.
Seven design principles
Methodology
Mixed methods, comparative cases and Design Science Research
The research logic is pragmatic and problem-driven, with an explicit intent to produce both a defensible explanatory model and a usable managerial artifact.
Field and comparative cases
- United States — federal industrial and climate policy, with a subnational deep dive in California.
- European Union — France, Germany and Spain.
- Africa — Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.
Data and validation
- Policy, legal and institutional document analysis.
- Structured comparative indicators drawn from the IEA, IRENA, the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD and the AfDB.
- Project delivery evidence: contracting logic, risk allocation patterns and lifecycle operational constraints.
- Repeat coding, source triangulation and structured documentary validation for auditability.
Analytical progression
- A literature-grounded synthesis producing the ETAM model, its dimensions, mechanisms and testable triggers.
- Within-case analysis using a standard template, followed by cross-case synthesis through pattern matching and rival explanation testing.
- Design Science Research transforming validated findings into design requirements, principles and the EIF-AI artifact.
Research artifact
ETAM Africa · EIF-AI Observatory
The artifact turns the dissertation argument into a testable tool: a decision-support layer that makes dependencies visible before decisions are locked in. It combines a continental view, a country profile and an explainable project score.
Four analytic modules
- Equity and opportunity scoring to prioritise interventions and safeguards.
- Social license and legitimacy monitoring to detect consent and conflict risks.
- Sovereignty and value capture simulation using supply chain graph logic.
- Resilience and stress envelopes for demand shocks, climate impacts and migration pressure.
Embedded governance
- Explainability requirements, model cards and drift monitoring.
- Human override rules and mandatory validation.
- Permission models, data sovereignty and exportable audit trails.
Implications
Policy, investment and delivery
Policy
For African governments and regional bodies, inclusion requires an integrated strategy connecting mineral governance, power sector reform and digital sovereignty: contract transparency and renegotiation capacity, credible upgrading pathways, and enforceable data rights clauses. For OECD governments, industrial policy that maximises domestic value capture without parallel rules enabling fair upgrading abroad amplifies global asymmetries.
Investment
EIF offers a practical due diligence overlay complementing ESG and climate risk screening. A bankability-only approach misprices political and operational risk because it ignores legitimacy dynamics, data lock-in and lifecycle performance constraints. For multilateral institutions, guarantees, currency risk instruments and longer-tenor finance are transition infrastructure, not exceptional support.
Delivery & management
For developers, EPCs and operators, inclusivity depends on delivery architecture: contracting, warranty design, training obligations, parts logistics and independent performance verification determine whether local institutions learn and whether assets remain reliable. EIF-AI is positioned as a PMO governance tool to enforce lifecycle accountability.
Structure
Nine chapters
Background, problematisation, aims and research questions.
Transition theory, geopolitics, justice, AI and the ETAM synthesis.
Paradigm, design, data sources, analysis strategy and the DSR track.
Energy and emissions, critical minerals, climate finance and cost of capital.
Comparative architecture, United States, European Union and African cases.
Mineral, financial, operational and data/AI asymmetries.
Principles, pillars, indicators, architecture and artifact evaluation.
Theoretical and managerial contributions, and limitations.
Answers to the research questions and future agenda.
Research fields
Academic or professional exchange