Enriching Organisational Knowledge of Corporate Social Responsibility From the Traditional African-Nigerian and Islamic Religion Perspectives

Abstract

This paper examines organisational knowledge of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the African-Nigerian and Islamic Religion Perspectives in order to enrich the American-European perspectives, that have dominated the academic landscape. Exploiting the Hermeneutics Theory of Interpretation, this research adopts a qualitative research method by extracting new meanings and themes from non-Western texts and scholarly works on CSR. The paper found that CSR had long existed in the philosophies of Africans and Islam as Ubuntu, Omoluwabi, Communal Solidarity, Zakat, Sadaqat and Waqf. The African-Islamic perspectives of CSR correlate with the American-European perspectives that have dominated the academic landscape. The findings therefore demystified the widely-held view that CSR is a new organisational knowledge in Africa and the Muslim World. Rather CSR had been entrenched in the cultural norms of Africans and Muslims, although with different names. The paper has enriched organisational knowledge, by providing an integrated understanding of CSR across three perspectives.