African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›African Business Culture Tips: Part 2 – CSR is Dead

African Business Culture Tips: Part 2 – CSR is Dead

By Uncategorised
September 28, 2012
1996
0

There is a very deceptive paradox in the fact that in places like Africa the conversations around CSR are hopelessly archaic while at the same time the way CSR is done can be quite broad-minded.

Words like “social enterprise”, “social innovation”, and “triple bottom-line” etc. induce little more than bafflement in the African boardroom. Corporate foundations and plain vanilla corporate philanthropy have however long enjoyed recognition. When you look closely however you will discover a serious fatigue about these age-long activities. The media is tired of it; communities are sceptical of corporate intent; and employees are completely detached from it, even more so than the West.

In a just-ended survey of American businesses in West Africa – carried out by a think-tank in the region – less than 1 percent of employees considered philanthropic volunteering as worth their while.

This was the context when a telecom company in Ghana decided to spend its CSR dollars supporting, nurturing and profiling successful already active social enterprises in Ghana. The television series they launched has been a massive hit, and they are seen to have completely outshone their rivals. People are tired of shedding tears of gratitude in the so-called developing world. There is a flood of the aspirational wherever you look. If you are going to spray a bit of shareholders’ cash around to pull some cred, better to go with the flow.

Read Part 3: Don’t Confuse “Culture” with “Structure”

Previous Article

African Business Culture Tips: Part 1 – ...

Next Article

African Business Culture Tips: Part 3 – ...

Uncategorised

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Politics

    REVIEW: Britain and Africa Under Blair: in pursuit of the good state – Reviewed by Chris Mullin

  • Politics

    An African President of the World Bank is not the Solution, when the Bank itself is the Problem – By Desné Masie

  • Politics

    Liberia: Children in the Fight Against Corruption – By Robtel Neajai Pailey

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Crisis in Lasanod: Border Disputes, Escalating Insecurity and the Future of Somaliland
  • Oligarchs, Oil and Obi-dients: The battle for the soul of Nigeria
  • Of cobblers, colonialism, and choices
  • Blackness, Pan-African Consciousness and Women’s Political Organising through the Magazine AWA
  • “People want to be rich overnight”: Nigeria logging abounds despite ban

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksPoliticsZambia

Zambia’s democracy is still under attack

But now by President Hichilema, the man who vowed to rescue it. When Hakainde Hichilema won Zambia’s August 2021 election, many hoped the assault on democracy that had characterised his ...
  • South Africa: Meet the queer vloggers taking back the narrative

    By Grant Andrews
    March 4, 2021
  • A woman and child walk past barbed wire in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Credit: Eduardo Fonseca Arraes.

    How Sierra Leone abolished the death penalty and what others could learn

    By Makmid Kamara & Sabrina Mahtani
    November 2, 2021
  • angola elections The Cidade Alta in Luanda, Angola. Credit: David Stanley.

    The real winners of Angola’s election

    By Cláudio Silva
    September 14, 2022
  • What is the legacy of #EndSARS?

    By Zainab Onuh-Yahaya
    November 23, 2021

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu