Business ethics in Africa: the role of institutional context,
social relevance, and development challenges
Article (Accepted Version)
http://sro.sussex.ac.uk
Adeleye, Ifedapo, Luiz, John, Muthuri, Judy and Amaeshi, Kenneth (2019) Business ethics in
Africa: the role of institutional context, social relevance, and development challenges. Journal of
Business Ethics. pp. 1-13. ISSN 0167-4544
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Business Ethics in Africa: The Role of Institutional Context, Social Relevance, and
Development Challenges
Ifedapo Adeleye, PhD
John Luiz, PhD
Judy Muthuri, PhD
Kenneth Amaeshi, PhD
Accepted for publication in the Journal of Business Ethics
Abstract
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.
Keywords:
Africa; Cross-Cultural Ethics; Ethical Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility; Anti-Corruption;
Philanthropy; Social Entrepreneurship; Impact Investing.
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Introduction
Business ethics in Africa — as a field of research, practice, and teaching — has grown substantially over
the last two decades or so (Rossouw, 2011; Kolk and Rivera-Santos, 2018). As a field of research, Africa’s
alternative paradigms of social relationships are receiving increasing attention as western-based theories of
the firm have come under global scrutiny (Barnard et al. 2017; Hamann et al. 2020). Ubuntu, in particular,
with its strong humanistic orientation, has gained attention in mainstream business ethics and management
outlets (see, for example, Woermann and Engelbrecht, 2019; West, 2014; Rivera-Santos et al. 2012; Lutz,
2009). A burgeoning literature in the broad areas of ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR),
governance, environmental management and sustainability is emerging, with business and society-related
articles dominating the literature on African business and management. In Kolk and Rivera-Santos’s (2018)
comprehensive review of Africa-focused articles in mainstream business and management outlets between
2010 and 2014, 33 articles were published in the Journal of Business Ethics alone (about a quarter of the
total articles reviewed), with another 18 in other business and society journals. At the regional level, the
African Journal of Business Ethics, the official journal of the Business Ethics Network of Africa (BEN-
Africa), has been published since 2006.
As a field of practice, business ethics in Africa is advancing. In South Africa, for instance, the publication
of the King Reports on Corporate Governance since 1994, in conjunction with the Institute of Directors in
Southern Africa (IoDSA), has played a significant role in institutionalising an ethical business culture there
(Rossouw, 2017). In Nigeria, The Convention on Business Integrity, which was established in 1997, now
has many prominent industry players as signatories, making a commitment to good governance, leadership
and ethics. Business ethics is now taught on academic programmes in many business schools and
universities. Rossouw’s (2011) survey identified about 150 modules in which business ethics was being
taught in academic institutions in the region, with the four broad content areas: theoretical foundations of
business ethics; macro-economic and systemic challenges; corporate responsibility; and, ethical
management and leadership.
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These advances in business ethics research, practice, and teaching in Africa should not be surprising for at
least two reasons. First, with past corruption, governance abuses, and institutional misalignments affecting
capital outflows (Barnard and Luiz, 2018) and socio-economic outcomes, business ethics now features
heavily on the business and political agenda in many African countries, as society and stakeholders
increasingly demand change and accountability. Second, Africa is now regarded as the world’s last frontier
market, with domestic and regional players competing with emerging market multinationals and Western
multinationals in a dynamic business landscape (Adeleye et al. 2015). As a result, businesses are under
increasing local and global scrutiny, with government agencies, civil society organisations, and the public
applying varying degrees of pressure. These factors, as well as the distinctively communal philosophy and
ethics that characterise traditional African cultures, position the continent to make unique contributions to
the broader business ethics and management literature.
A word of caveat is in order here for those that are not familiar with the African context: Africa is not a
homogeneous entity. Africa’s 1.3 billion people live in 55 countries spread out across five sub-regions (i.e.
Central, Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western Africa), and belong to about 2,000 ethno-linguistic
groups. The continent is characterised by multiple diversities in terms of level of economic development,
the state of political development, cultural and ethnic groupings, religious affiliations, and legacies of
European colonisation. Any generalisations about Africa must therefore be qualified, even though there are
some discernible similarities across many countries. The rest of this paper is organised into five main
sections addressing important, under-researched or newly emerging phenomena in Africa: Culture, Ethics,
and Leadership; Business, Society, and Institutions; Corruption, Anti-Corruption, and Governance;
Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, and Impact Investing. The fifth section provides a summary of the
eight papers in this special issue, after which we offer brief concluding remarks.
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African Culture, Ethics, and Leadership
It is difficult for managers to increase their effectiveness when they are taught management theories that
contradict their cultures…When the firm is understood as a community, the purpose of management is
neither to benefit one collection of individuals, as shareholder-value-maximisation theories claim, nor to
benefit several collections of individuals, as stakeholder theories tell us, but to benefit the community, as
well as the larger communities of which it is a part. In most African business schools, the doctrine that ‘the
defining purpose of business is maximizing owner value over the long term by selling goods or services’
(Sternberg, 2000: 32) is assumed as axiomatic. In addition to being unethical, this doctrine contradicts
African cultures. (Lutz, 2009, p. 318)
The gap between business ethics theory and practice in the classroom appears particularly problematic in
the African context, as the quote above illustrates, and raises several pertinent questions around how African
ethics might differ from Western or Asian ethics, and the role of culture in cultivating ethical leadership.
African Ethics and Culture
Ubuntu, Indaba, and Kgotla. There is now a growing body of literature on African indigenous philosophy
and ethics across multiple disciplines, including: business ethics, leadership and organisational behaviour,
cross-cultural management and cultural political economy (Metz, 2018; Edozie, 2017; Amaeshi and
Idemudia, 2015; West, 2014; Newenham-Kahindi, 2009; Lutz, 2009). Many of these studies seek to provide
a theory or framework of management or leadership that is consistent with traditional African values, and
well-suited to communal societies. Barnard et al. (2017), for example, make a compelling case that Africa
offers a promising context to develop new management and organization theories, with its unique socio-
cultural, institutional, and environmental realities providing an alternative perspective to existing theories