Corporate social responsibility in Ethiopia: Approaches and practices

There exists a great deal of academic writings about corporate social responsibility. However, the context of these papers is somehow similar focusing on the developed countries. Ethiopia, where the state is also a key player in the business has quite different business, state, and society interaction. In addition to the state‟s high stake in the business, the leverage of intellectual freedom, strong media, independent civil associations, activist and advocacy groups who had played a key role in transforming the notion of corporate social responsibility is so weak in Ethiopia. Hence it is an ideal context with less driving forces to measure companies‟ corporate social responsibility practices. Given the fact that corporate social responsibility is an under-researched area in developing countries, this paper aims to examine corporate social responsibility approaches and practices of indigenous firms in Ethiopia. Moreover, it will assess the stage of corporate social responsibility practice. Last but not least, this paper compares corporate social responsibility practices between private and state-owned companies. The finding reveals hat, though it is fragmented and the priorities are different from the global trend, Ethiopian companies practice CSR. In addition, there is no statistically significant differences between the CSR practices of private and state-owned businesses. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethiopia, CSR pyramid, Developing Countries, Africa