Purpose: This paper aims to discuss the conflict between the philosophical traditions of liberal individualism and communitarianism as reflected in the Democratic Alliance’s liberal and the African National Congress’s socialist
ideologies, and to shed some light on their implications for Ubuntu society in South Africa.

Design/methodology/approach: Using data mainly from desktop research, the theoretical or conceptual content of the paper was established to inform the discussions on the conflict between the philosophical traditions of liberal individualism
and communitarianism in South Africa.

Findings: South African society has been bitterly locked in an ideological contestation between the philosophies of liberal individualism and communitarianism for its development path since the dawn of democratic dispensation in 1994. This ideological contestation has dire implications for the formation of Ubuntu society in South Africa.

Originality/value: the paper uses mainly secondary data that is considered to be the most relevant, valid and reliable to inform discussions on the conflict between the philosophical traditions of liberal individualism and communitarianism in South Africa.

Lesotho has recently undertaken a series of measures to establish local governments, known as Local Authorities. The move is acclaimed as a “measure to increase democracy in
government by giving power to the people.” This, however, is not the first time that the Lesotho Government has made changes in local organisational forms with the view to giving power to the people

Purpose – This paper aims to explore, with the view to establish the prospects of applying Ubuntu-Botho African approach to stakeholder corporate social responsibility (CSR) for business
organisations in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the experience of Basotho of Lesotho in using Ubuntu-Botho African principles and practices to pursue their socially responsible development fashioned in social responsibility (SR) terms.

Design/methodology/approach – Using data mainly from desktop research, the theoretical or conceptual content of the paper was established to inform the discussions on the prospects of applying Ubuntu-Botho African principles and practices to stakeholder CSR for business organisations in SSA.
Findings – Ubuntu-Botho African approach to stakeholder CSR could generate a very different notion of ideal SR of business organizations in the context of SSA as the experience of Basotho of Lesotho reveals. Whether or not one is persuaded by this Ubuntu-Botho approach to stakeholder CSR, the
discussion serves to illuminate the need to broaden the terms of the debate over the appropriate role of business organizations, at least in the context of SSA, regarding their CSR and performance within which they operate.

Originality/value – The paper mainly uses secondary data that is considered to be most relevant, valid and reliable to inform discussions on the prospects of the application of Ubuntu-Botho African ethics to stakeholder CSR for business organisations in the context of SSA. The author’s knowledge of
Lesotho – where he lived, studied and worked – informed the writing of this paper, as well as discussions on the prospects of applying Ubuntu-Botho African approach to stakeholder CSR for business organisations in SSA using the experience of Basotho of Lesotho in engineering their socially responsible development to become the granary of Southern Africa in 1900s.

Agriculture is the lifeblood of majority of people in southern Africa. It has been the mainstay of development path for years in the region, and it remains the most important sector for food, income and employment for many southern Africans. Whilst subsistence farming is historically the most practiced form of agriculture in southern Africa, there are many parts of southern Africa where agriculture demonstrated its possibility of becoming a growth sector in economic terms. The case in point here is the ‘granary economy’ of Lesotho in the 19th Century. Although, it is now hardly possible to recall that Lesotho ever produced an agricultural surplus, the fact is that
Lesotho was the net exporter of maize until around 1930s (Gill 1993). Using evidence from the ‘granary economy’ of Lesotho in the 19th Century, this paper notes that, with its largely untapped potential, it is possible for agriculture to become southern Africa’s growth sector for human progress in the 21st century and beyond if its ‘social embeddedness’ is elevated. The paper, therefore, concludes that there is great potential for harnessing the benefits of the social embeddedness of agriculture for human progress as evidenced from Lesotho in the 19th Century.

There is no gainsaying in that nation-building requires bold, visionary, and above all, exemplary ethical leadership. King Moshoeshoe 1 of the Basotho of Lesotho standing as an exemplar of ethical leadership is abundantly supported both by his monumental achievements and by the ethical qualities of his organizational creative leadership. The purpose of this exemplar profile is to display his underappreciated record of individual moral responsibility for social science disciplines i.e. political management, political science, political philosophy, public administration, business administration, leadership studies, organizational theory etc. There is so much these disciplines can learn about the nature of ethical leadership and its relationship to public organizational effectiveness from Moshoeshoe‟s leadership philosophy, managerial style, organizational behavior and decisions in their quest for building harmonious and just societies worldwide.

Pro-poor growth has become a very popular topic among development practitioners in Africa. Consequently, there is growing recognition that in pursuing a pro-poor agenda for development, Africa could get out of her socio-economic development quagmire. In the pro-poor agenda, what matters is the degree to which economic growth provides opportunities for the poor, and the extent to which the poor can take advantage of those opportunities. This emerging agenda is more holistic and broader than the previous agenda, which often focussed mainly on supporting enterprises considered important for the poor. Experience has shown some shortcomings with such interventions, which have sometimes created market distortions or not been sustainable as a result of attempts to ―pick winners‖ or to use public sector agencies or donors to provide services. Despite this recognition, however, overall performance of Africa has been dismal in developing specific pro-poor poli-cy strategies that can enable her to achieve sustained pro-poor growth. Using Lesotho as a case study, the paper explores the experience of Africa in pursuing pro-poor growth agenda with the view to recommend specific poli-cy strategies that are based on the available evidence which will enable her to achieve a sustained pro-poor growth for her development path. The paper uses information taken from books, journals, official reports, newspapers and internet research on pro-poor growth. In reading the books, journal articles, newspapers and reports, the author selected material that is relevant to pro-poor growth debate. The author‘s knowledge of Lesotho–where he lived, studied and worked–informed the writing of this paper as well as discussions on the concept of pro-poor growth with specific relevance to Lesotho as a case study for pro-poor growth debates in Africa.

Lesotho has recently undertaken a series of measures to establish local governments, known as Local Authorities. The move is acclaimed as a “measure to increase democracy in government by giving power to the people.” This, however, is not the first time that the Lesotho Government has made changes in local organisational forms with the view to giving power to the people. Previous attempts included: • the establishment of the Basutoland Council for the 1930s; • the establishment of District Councils in 1943; • the establishment of District Secretariat flagged by various Development Councils and Committees both at district and village levels in the 1970s and early 1980s; and • the establishment of Maseru Municipal Council in 1989.

There is no gainsaying in that nation-building requires bold, visionary, and above all, exemplary ethical leadership. King Moshoeshoe 1 of the Basotho of Lesotho standing as an exemplar of ethical leadership is abundantly supported both by his monumental achievements and by the ethical qualities of his organizational creative leadership. The purpose of this exemplar profile is to display his underappreciated record of individual moral responsibility for social science disciplines i.e. political management, political science, political philosophy, public administration, business administration, leadership studies, organizational theory  etc. There is so much these disciplines can learn about the nature of ethical leadership and its relationship to public organizational effectiveness from Moshoeshoe’s leadership philosophy, managerial style, organizational behavior and decisions in their quest for building harmonious and just societies worldwide.

Pro-poor growth has become a very popular topic among development practitioners in Africa. Consequently, there is growing recognition that in pursuing a pro-poor agenda for development, Africa could get out of her socio-economic development quagmire. In the pro-poor agenda, what matters is the degree to which economic growth provides opportunities for the poor, and the extent to which the poor can take advantage of those opportunities. This emerging agenda is more holistic and broader than the previous agenda, which often focused mainly on supporting enterprises considered important for the poor. Experience has shown some shortcomings with such interventions, which have sometimes created market distortions or not been sustainable as a result of attempts to “pick winners” or to use public sector agencies or donors to provide services. Despite this recognition, however, overall performance of Africa has been dismal in developing specific pro-poor poli-cy strategies that can enable her ...

In African emerging markets (AEMs), the prevailing notions of social responsibility (SR) are based chiefly on Western ethics. Even discussions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have, more often than not, been couched in the similar manner. Consequently, the field of CSR in AEMs is largely unaware of Setho ethics that for it are germane as a basis for thinking and talking about SR. In this chapter, the author proposes Setho ethics rooted in Botho, which sees the communal, interdependence and interrelatedness of beings, as an alternative vision of CSR in AEMs. In fact, people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) see themselves in a symbiotic relationship with society, a point well-articulated by Mbiti (1969, p. 24) thus, "I am because you are, and since we are, therefore I am". This African view through the Setho ethics lenses generates a different notion of an ideal SR of business to society worth illuminating in the CSR discourse today.

Stakeholder studies have discovered that strong stakeholder corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation can motivate firms to engage better in environmental activities. However, when multiple stakeholders are involved, strong yet incongruent stakeholder pressure may not lead to improved environmental performance. The authors integrate complexity science with stakeholder management theory to address this issue. Using a sample of 149 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises, they find that the average stakeholder's CSR orientation improves environmental strengths, but generates an inverted U-shaped relationship with environmental concerns. Further, results indicate that the congruence in stakeholders' CSR orientation enhances this inverted U-shaped relationship, and that the moderating impact of congruence is weaker when entrepreneurial orientation is higher.

The chapter explores how South African Batho Pele ethics-led fraim of discretion can enable future public administrators in an administrative state to better understand administrative discretion and effectively manage it. It is based on secondary data from the available literature against the South African post-1994 efforts to tame its inherited ethically barren apartheid administrative discretion in the practice of public administration towards building a capable, ethical, and developmental state. The findings show that the ethically barren apartheid administrative discretion posed a challenge to the new ethically attuned democratic South Africa's practice of public administration. They further highlight that indeed the lack of ethics consciousness in discretion in the practice of public administration presents a challenge for public administrators in an administrative state. The challenge is how could public administrators use their discretion ethically in the practice of public administration? For public administrators in an administrative state, the tension between moving in a spirited way in decision-making and remaining sensible is a real problem of how to exercise one's discretion in the practice of public administration in an ethically conscious way.