Lauren McCarthy presents at the third biennial AFAM Conference

Lauren presented her paper ‘The Ignored Role of Unpaid Carework in CSR’ at the third biennial Africa Academy of Management (AFAM), this time in Nairobi, Kenya. Drawing on fieldwork in Ghana, the paper considers whether and how companies practising CSR may be able to ‘recognise, reduce and re-distribute’ (Elson, 2008) the burden of domestic work. Doing so can help move the currently popular women’s empowerment programmes, such as Coca-Cola’s 20by20 initiative, past short-term economic gains and into the realm of social and political empowerment.

Gender empowerment was also a theme for the experiential trip to Karuri Beads. Kazuri mainly employ single mothers and pay a Fairtrade wage that is almost double that of the national minimum wage. The AFAM crew were a tough crowd, however, raising concerns over women’s opportunity to progress within the organisation, for example, into management roles.

AFAM continues to inspire organisational and CSR scholars to ensure their work speaks to both academic rigour and real-world impact. Ensuring we are allies to African scholarship, and contribute to the development of the continent in meaningful ways, will remain an on-going concern for CSR and sustainability research.

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