Corporate Social Responsibility in Tanzania: Experience of Misconception, Misuse and Malpractices

Abstract

Corporations enormously influence our lives in a myriad of ways. Corporations especially embark on organising tasks in our economic life (Lindblom and Woodhouse 1993), and their role in society has always been a battleground of political debate and ideological affectation. As Chatterji (2011: 13) said “when selfish means of earning profit is practised by the business world, then society becomes the victim of domination, exploitation and oppression.” Despite our multicultural world, there are certain values that are universally upheld and are acceptable as such; these are collectively known as ‘human rights’. In such a cross-cultural world of business, issues have to be prioritised, keeping always the aspects of human compassion and justice at the forefront. Thus, every age in history has tried to find the symbiotic relationship between the economic man and the social man (Chatterji 2011). Today, one of the prominent attempts of dealing with this dilemma is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).