| 520 |
|
|
|b The concept of Social responsibility of business which, is deeply ingrained in political philosophy, has surfaced in the management literature since World War H, and has been escalating ever since. Scholarly work on the concept have ranged from a rejectionist approach based on economic considerations to a complete embodiment of social responsibility as a behaviour that should be assumed by businessmen as part of their business ethics. Since the concept has originally evolved in Western societies, it was taken for granted that the concept can be applied universally. Little attention, however, has been granted to the type of political and economic systems in non-western societies, where, businessmen function. Whilst reviewing the various literatures on Social responsibility, this paper argues that the concept of social responsibility is only applicable in liberal democratic societies characterised by freedom of choice, deliberative democratic public will formation, free competitive market, and societal control on business behaviour through sound check and balances measures. On the other hand, in non- democratic countries, such as Mubarak’s Egypt that are characterised by lack of pluralism and freedom of choice, by the presence of authoritarian decision-¬making, by the absence of free markets and the existence of monopolies that distort the political and economic markets, and lack of societal control on the behaviour of businessmen due to the repression of various societal groups, the validity of the concept becomes questionable. The monopolies that exist in the market are exemplified by the presence of the so called politico-economic entrepreneurs who monopolise political and economic power. These group of politico-economic entrepreneur have extended their influence to civil society where they depicted their philanthropic endeavour as part of assuming their social responsibility and as a sort of "giving back to society" . Some of their philanthropy has been manifested in the establishment of community development NGO's through their philanthropic donations which is complemented by foreign aid. By examining two of those philanthropic NGO’s that has been created and run by the politico-economic entrepreneurs, this paper rejects the claimed notion of social responsibility and argues instead that these philanthropic projects mainly those two NGO’s are created for business purposes the prime reason of which is buying electorate votes for those entrepreneurs during elections and for enriching their pockets from aid money. Instead of giving back to society through acting as agents of political change or enhancing community development those politico-economic entrepreneurs have exploited society through undemocratic internal practices, abuse of foreign aid, and the sacrifice of developmental objectives for political and economic gains. A contributory factor has been the minimal level of inspection by the state, donor organisations, and the various repressed societal groups. Hence under the guise of social responsibility, Egyptian politico-economic entrepreneurs create a business out of their social responsibility pretentions.
|
