Corporate Social Responsibility as a Tool for Sustainable Development in Africa - Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task :

Task:

The paper discusses the importance of a proper alignment of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies and programmes with operating context if ‘real’ sustainable development as a key aspect of CSR is to be achieved in Africa. The question of whether or not companies have the responsibility of taking care of stakeholders other than shareholders has been a highly contested one for many years. Perspectives have been equally divided between the Adam Smith-informed ‘business-of-business-is-business’ agency model (2) and the stakeholder model, with the latter arguing that, beyond shareholders there are several other stakeholders with an interest in the actions and decisions of companies.

However, owing to the accelerated rise in the notion and practice of sustainable development, the popularity of the classical agency theory suffered a gradual decline and today CSR is undoubtedly seen as an integral part of doing business globally. Consequently, the CSR question has since shifted from whether companies have a responsibility towards other stakeholders to what constitutes an important stakeholder. The answer to this new question is the focus of this discussion paper. It is the argument of this paper that, in CSR matters, the identification of a stakeholder, including the relative importance thereof, cannot and should not be universal. The answer should rather be contextually determined if CSR is to advance the notion of sustainable development as proposed by the United Nations (UN) Global Compact. In fact, failure to acknowledge context apparently makes ‘life’ unsustainable for all parties to development including the company itself.

Context and Africa’s non-financial stakeholders

Companies, just like people, are citizens of a country and as such, should behave in a manner that conforms with the requirements of responsible citizenship, voluntarily or involuntarily so. Every citizen of a country who is able should, at least out of a sense of responsibility, complement Government efforts to ‘move the nation forward’, in all possible meanings of the phrase. In Africa today, social responsibility should not be treated, and indeed is no longer being treated, as that voluntary ‘nice to have’ activity on the side-lines of the mainstream activity of making money. It is an imperative, ’must have’ governance principle contained in the purpose and conduct of any successful African business enterprise.(6) Indeed, this business for development (7) role has the blessing of the UN Global Compact which urges companies to take action and engage in partnerships to advance broader UN development goals, particularly the eight millennium development goals (MDGs). Because they have a CSR trajectory, from a company’s perspective, the partnerships, according to the UN SecretaryGeneral (2003), are voluntary and collaborative relationships between various parties, State and non-State alike, where the common purpose is that of undertaking specific tasks and to share risks, responsibilities, resources, competencies and benefits.(8) Companies and the Government need each other and neither of the two can do without the other. Without the two working together, there will be no development to speak of, at least not one that is sustainable

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