Søren Jeppesen

SMEs and CSR in Developing Countries

This article is the guest editors’ introduction to the special issue in Business & Society on “SMEs and CSR in Developing Countries.” The special issue includes four original research articles by Hamann, Smith, Tashman, and Marshall; Allet; Egels-Zandén; and Puppim de Oliveira and Jabbour on various aspects of the relationship of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries.

Understanding the rise of African business : In search of business perspectives on African enterprise development

Purpose - – In light of recent enthusiasm over African private sector development, the purpose of this paper is to review the business literature on African enterprise development with a view of identifying lacunas in the literature and of developing an analytical framework that may guide future research on this issue. Design/methodology/approach - – The paper provides a review of the extant literature on African enterprise development by juxtaposing the traditional pessimistic view of African business performance with more recent, optimistic accounts. Based on the literature review, lacunas in the literature are identified and an integrative framework for analysing African enterprise development is developed. The framework is used to provide an overview of the received literature on African enterprise development, to identify voids and lacunas and to identify new research agendas. Findings - – While a growing number of studies suggest profound improvements in the performance of African enterprises, data limitations, conceptual ambiguities and absence of comprehensive studies still cautions against sweeping generalizations. The paper reviews the literature on factors shaping the performance of African enterprises, observing that while much research is focusing on the role of the African business environments for enterprise development, much less attention has been devoted to the role of firm-specific capabilities, strategies and management. The paper concludes by advocating a contingency approach to research on African enterprise development that emphasizes the interplay between firm-specific factors and the specificities of the African business environment. Originality/value - – The paper provides a comprehensive literature review on African enterprise development and presents a novel framework for understanding African enterprise development from a business perspective.

Firm-level Perspectives on State–Business Relations in Africa: The Food-processing Sector in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia

Experiences from developed and emerging economies inform us that close state–business relations (SBRs) are crucial for economic development and structural transformation. Based on the positive experiences from other parts of the world, most African governments have begun processes to establish collaborative SBRs. Amongst other initiatives, these processes include amendments to existing laws to facilitate public–private interaction, direct support to existing business associations (BAs). This article draws on an analysis of survey data from 210 local firms, complemented with qualitative data from interviews with 41 firms, 20 key informants and a range of secondary sources on the food-processing sectors of Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The article shows that businesses in these countries have limited policy influence, find policies and programmes to be inadequate when targeting the needs and requirements of local businesses and that BAs in these countries are poorly organised. In spite of initiatives taken by the states and other actors, including an increase in the number of formal relations between state and businesses, it is difficult to conclude whether SBRs are collaborative or collusive. The article contributes to the existing SBR literature by adding a firm-level perspective and by enhancing our knowledge on the usefulness of key theoretical approaches to these issues in an African context.