Business ethics in Africa, as a field of research, practice, and teaching, has grown rapidly over the last two decades or so, covering a wide variety of topical issues, including corporate social responsibility, governance, and social entrepreneurship. Building on this progress, and to further advance the field, this special issue addresses four broad areas that cover important, under-researched or newly emerging phenomena in Africa: culture, ethics and leadership; business, society and institutions; corruption, anti-corruption and governance; and philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and (...) impact investing. In addition to advancing research by addressing some of the imbalances and gaps in the extant literature, this special issue draws attention to indigenous African theories, models and firms. Some challenges facing business ethics, as a field of practice and teaching in Africa, are also highlighted. The paper concludes with a summary of the eight articles in this special issue. (shrink)

Corporate anti-corruption initiatives can make a substantial contribution towards curtailing corruption and advancing efforts to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. However, researchers have observed that underdeveloped assumptions with respect to the conceptualization of corruption and how firms respond to corruption risk impeding the efficacy of anti-corruption programs. We investigate the relationship between the perceived level of corruption in foreign host countries and the organizational structure of subsidiary operations established by multinational corporations. Foreign host market corruption is disaggregated into (...) two components—private and public corruption. We employ an uncertainty-based perspective grounded in transaction cost theory to focus upon the distinct mechanisms through which private and public corruption can each be expected to impact a foreign subsidiary’s organizational structure [wholly-owned subsidiary or a joint venture with a local partner]. We expect that each type of corruption fosters a different type of uncertainty which predominates in shaping the MNC’s choice of foreign subsidiary investment structure. Hypotheses are developed and tested with a sample of 187 entries into 19 foreign host markets. Each type of corruption was found to exert a distinct effect upon the organizational structure of foreign subsidiaries. More precisely, while heightened perceived levels of public corruption were found to motivate MNCs to invest through a JV with a local partner rather than a WOS, more pronounced private corruption precipitated the opposite outcome. (shrink)

While support for corporate political activity (CPA) is well echoed in the literature, little has been done to empirically examine its ethicality. Moreover, existing ethical CPA frameworks assume normative and rational leanings that are insufficient to provide a comprehensive account of CPA ethicality. Utilizing the Ghanaian context, adopting a multiple case study design involving 28 Directors from 22 firms, and employing a grounded theory approach, I explore how the ethicality of CPA is determined in weak institutional environments. The findings reveal (...) that business executives evaluate ethics at three levels (i.e. context, organizational and strategy) using three principles (i.e. utilitarianism, justice and institutions). Leveraging this knowledge, I present an eclectic framework that bridges the long-standing gap between normative ethical prescriptions and lived ethical realities. In doing so, I move away from abstraction to give “voice” to the actors involved in CPA. I also present a model that shows how the ethical judgement process is influenced by managerial intuition and interactive personal and organizational experiences. This article has important theoretical and practical implications for ethical business-government relations in developing countries. (shrink)

There is a lack of research about the political strategies used by firms in emerging countries, mainly because the literature often assumes that Western-oriented corporate political activity has universal application. Drawing on resource-dependency logics, we explore why and how firms orchestrate CPA in the institutionally challenging context of Nigeria. Our findings show that firms deploy four context-fitting but ethically suspect political strategies: affective, financial, pseudo-attribution and kinship strategies. We leverage this understanding to contribute to CPA in emerging countries by arguing (...) that corporate political strategies are shaped by the reciprocity and duality of dependency relationships between firms and politicians, and also by advancing that these strategies reflect institutional weaknesses and unique industry-level opportunities. Importantly, we shed light on the muttered dark side of CPA. We develop a CPA framework and discuss the research, practical and policy implications of our findings. (shrink)

We explore why and how corporations seek to build community resilience as a strategic response to grand challenges. Based on a comparative case study analysis of four corporations strategically building community resilience in five place-based communities in South Africa, as well as three counterfactual cases, we develop a process model of corporate practices and contingent factors that explain why and how some corporations commit to community resilience building and whether they try to do so directly or indirectly. We thus help (...) explain corporations’ strategic contributions to community resilience, and we emphasise the role of place-specific resources, social-ecological system viability, and limited statehood in motivating such organisational responses to grand challenges. (shrink)

This study furthers our understanding of how corruption affects the decision-making process of allocating foreign direct investment. Drawing on the responses of 28 managers in charge of establishing operations in a highly corrupt host country, we argue that those firms based in home countries with low levels of corruption are more proactive in preparing to face corruption abroad than those based in countries with high corruption levels. This means that firms from less corrupt home countries have strategies in place to (...) deal with high corruption abroad. This finding is based on the fact that these firms have stronger pressures to not engage in corruption from their home stakeholders. Also, these firms might not have the experience of dealing with corruption at home, which hinders their potential to deal with corruption abroad. On the other hand, those firms based in highly corrupt home countries do not have clear strategies to deal with corruption abroad. This assertion is based on the fact that these firms might have familiarity in dealing with corruption and thus, might not see it as an obstacle to operating abroad. (shrink)

Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) are legal means, alternative to trial, for the resolution of criminal business cases. Although DPAs are increasingly used in the US and are spreading to other jurisdictions, the ethics of DPAs has hardly been subjected to critical scrutiny. We use a multidisciplinary approach straddling the line between philosophy and law to examine the ethics of DPAs used to resolve cases of multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) foreign corruption. Deontologically, we argue that the normativity of DPAs raises critical concerns (...) related to the notion of justice as punishment, with serious cases of international corruption resolved with minimal retribution for offending MNEs. Taking a utilitarian ethical perspective, we also evaluate the effect of DPAs on MNEs’ tendency to self-regulate or re-offend. Our conclusion, supported by critical analysis of the juridical literature and case evidence on MNEs’ recidivism, is that DPAs do not foster ethical behavior. (shrink)