Articulating CSR and Public Management Reform: An Interpretive Multiple-Case Study of Four African Administrations

This research examines the articulation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR, or RSO in French contexts) to public management reform within four African administrations. Addressing the structural circularity and conceptual limitations of traditional “catch-all” frameworks, we restructure the theoretical model into a sequential system of systemic relational mediation. Utilizing a multiple case study design encompassing ten public administrations across four African countries (Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, and Sudan), primary data were collected through sixteen in-depth semi-structured interviews and supplemented by two focus groups. A thematic analysis demonstrates the pivotal role of Politico-Administrative Responsibility (PAR, or RPA). The streamlined model suggests that external environmental pressures from citizen-clients are associated with heightened internal operational tensions between public managers and politicians in the studied cases. In response, these tensions appear to stimulate the co-construction and activation of a shared PAR framework. Acting as a regulatory mechanism, PAR is described by participants as reducing internal organizational conflict and restoring institutional trust, while fostering the success of administrative modernization. These findings are interpreted as plausible associations, not as causal or statistical validation.