A Critical Review of Corporate Social Responsibility in African Manufacturing Sector: Revisioning of Future Research

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a central concept within the of sustainable development globally, yet its manifestation within the African manufacturing sector remains under-theorized and empirically fragmented. This paper critically reviews the current state of CSR research focusing on African manufacturing industries. Synthesizing literature from the past decade alongside seminal foundational works, this review maps the intellectual terrain of the field. The analysis reveals a pronounced geographic bias, with scholarship disproportionately concentrated on South Africa and Nigeria, leaving vast regions of the continent underrepresented. Furthermore, a significant sectoral gap exists; while extractive industries (oil and mining) are well-documented, heavy manufacturing sectors, such as aluminium processing, are notably absent from the discourse. Methodologically, the field suffers from an over-reliance on cross-sectional quantitative surveys and a lack of qualitative depth, limiting the understanding of contextual nuances. This paper contributes to the literature by the appraisal of the Western-centric theoretical frameworks often applied to African contexts and proposes a robust research agenda. The finding of this paper calls for sector-specific investigations, the adoption of indigenous theoretical lenses such as Ubuntu, and methodological diversification to better capture the complexities of CSR in the Global South.