African business schools become new CSR frontier

How do you convince company executives, as well as government and other officials in developing countries, that suppliers should have the same commitment to sustainability and responsible business practice as those who buy their products? How does one promote perspectives across the range of CSR issues – such as human rights, sustainability and child labour – in societies where there is no history or culture of such thinking?

Well, a team at the UK’s International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) – based at Nottingham University Business School – is seeking to address this question after being selected by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to pilot, develop and co-ordinate an academic programme designed to spread awareness and uptake of best practice among new and experienced business professionals.

The result is the Sustainable Supply Chain Management Module, and the ICCSR is leading its implementation across the ILO’s international network of business schools. Last year, the module was piloted in Ghana, where it was tested and then rolled out into a 16-hour teaching session for business trainers, hosted by the Ghana Institute of Management & Public Administration (Gimpa) and attended by 23 academics from Gimpa, Cape Coast University and Ghana University. It was then taught to business professionals, consisting of 31 private and public sector supply chain practitioners.

Nottingham University CSR lecturer and project leader Dr Judy Muthuri said: “We took [the trainers] through the materials, showed them what the module is about, how you might teach them and develop standalone modules.”

These trainers would, in turn, be given the skills and resources to train supply chain managers in their own organisations.  

The modules are not presented as a normative set of rules that must be imposed, but more as a means of creating awareness and engaging students on the issues. The scope for discussion and brainstorming increased as the Ghanaian students became acquainted with the module, covering a range of issues such as mining industry health and safety practices, deforestation, waste management and the widespread pollution of land, air and water.

One brainstorming session covered the dumping of electronic goods – or ‘e-waste’ – a major issue in Ghana. The students were challenged to consider the social, economic, legal and environmental issues around buying a refrigerator – Ghana has recently introduced a procurement law, forcing organisations to have all of their purchases certified.

Said Muthuri: “We asked them to think through the multiple dimensions, the linkages and interdependencies of the various elements of a product’s lifecycle, to show that this is not just a question of people dumping fridges, but also about business processes and the decisions they make. For example, do they check that a company they buy from has systems and processes in place for waste management and after-life for fridges?”

Muthuri believes the students’ initial absence of ‘joined-up’ thinking results from a lack of exposure and awareness of the processes and patterns that underlay an issue, and that this is reflected across the spectrum of CSR topics.

She added: “The difference between Africa and the West is that there are many parallel processes happening in developed countries that raise awareness: government intervention, education and actions within industries. That comprehensive, multi-pronged approach is not found in most African countries, with the exception of South Africa.”

This in part explains why an African’s one-dimensional view of CSR, she said. “In Africa, most people assume CSR is about philanthropy and an add-on. Once they start looking at the multiple dimensions and functionality of a particular issue, as we do in the pilot, then they start thinking about things they have previously taken for granted.”

Given the study materials have been developed in the West, Muthuri and her colleagues are very conscious of not merely telling their students, ‘this is what is done’. She said: “We’re trying to influence and create awareness about the way they think about issues. It’s also important they realise that the Ghanaian government, for example, is not sleeping on the job and has brought in regulation.

“Many of the people in the business school group who knew nothing about the Ghana Business Code, for example; that it had been developed over years and mirrors the UN Global Compact principles. Business schools here still teach traditional management theory.”  

Judy and her colleagues are not “just talking about these issues in terms of compliance”, but also stress competitive advantage, efficiency and effectiveness. After all, she said, “morale and motivation, the things that really make business, are just as important in Africa as anywhere else”.

Muthuri believes the Ghana project has been a great success because both students and business schools are now running with the CSR agenda. Gimpa, in particular, has taken the training to heart, developing a certificate of its own on sustainable supply chain management.

This must be music to the ears of Ricarda McFalls, project lead at the ILO, who recalls how the sustainability project was formulated by a group of business academics. “We said there was room for more work on the social agenda,” McFalls said, who heads the ILO’s multinational enterprises programme. But the ILO emphasises that the ball is in the court of the managers and officials who attend the courses. “Instead of dictating what they do, we are saying, ‘You need to know this’,” McFalls said. She sees sustainability awareness as becoming increasingly important to catch up with the spread of supply chains across continents.

Melvin Bamuh, a Cameroonian PhD student studying CSR at Nottingham who supports the project, believes it is important to convince companies in developing countries that sustainability and CSR are not a burden but a “veritable source of good business”, adding: “Engaging with the producer is vital.”

The Ghana pilot was followed by another in China, and Muthuri hopes yet another pilot will be run at Bangalore University in India during 2013.