To browse Academia. This chapter introduces the book by contextualizing it to the African context. It presents a brief discussion on corporate social responsibility in nine countries, namely Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe in order to provide a comparative perspective.
The general picture emerging from the review of literature on corporate social responsibility in Africa is that it is not widely practised, mainly because of weak legislation. The chapter then focuses on Botswana, providing the rationale for Botswana being the focus.
This makes this the examination of the role of business in society in Botswana imperative. There is a clear dissonance between what companies in Botswana publicly portray as corporate social responsibility CSR or corporate citizenship CC behaviour and the reality on the ground. Evidence presented in this book shows that the logics and forms of business—society interactions are complex and the effects on stakeholders are multifarious.
This chapter synthesizes the overarching characteristics and dimensions of CSR initiatives and also assesses the extent to which the activities are substantive or symbolic. The conclusion is that while the different business sectors in Botswana have recently embraced the philosophy of giving back to communities, the impact on their activities has been limited. What is glaringly missing is a strategic engagement of communities that transforms them from being dependent to participatory stakeholders.
Most firms are actually investing more in projecting themselves as good corporate citizens than in addressing genuine community needs. The findings revealed that the extent and type of CSR practices in these countries did not significantly differ from that proposed by a U. There were, however, differences between the sampled organizations that clustered into a stakeholder perspective and traditional capitalist model groups. In the latter group, the board of directors, owners, and shareholders were important stakeholders that appeared to be restricting extended stakeholder CSR activities in the Malawi and Botswana organizations.
