Abstract
This article reviews employee HIV and AIDS-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices by small business in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The article aims to present a comparative snapshot of how SMMEs are responding to the epidemic as a basis for developing a CSR framework that could be implemented by SMMEs in both countries. The article applies an exploratory literature review methodology to extract data from secondary sources. Research findings show that HIV and AIDS-related CSR in Zimbabwe appear disengaged from the direct influence of corporate business, the opposite of what South African SMMEs experience. In South Africa, SMME CSR practices experience pressure from large firms. However, differences in economic status between the two countries show no effect on the CSR behaviors of SMMEs in both countries when compared with each other. In both countries, findings reveal that SMMEs hardly establish HIV and AIDS policies and therefore rely on informal CSR practices to assist employees to deal with the pandemic in the workplace. Thus, the article submits that while HIV and AIDS practices are not formalized in both countries, SMMEs fulfil their epidemic-related CSR obligations towards employees’ corresponding with their smallness. In conclusion, the study recommends an empirical examination of the research question to establish a grounded recommendation for the development of a SMMEs CSR framework that could be implemented by SMMEs in both countries.
Highlights
AND RESEARCH FOCUSZimbabwe and South Africa are two Southern African countries bedevilled with the HIV and AIDS epidemic to greater proportions
In one featured SMME, tion to HIV and AIDS in the workplace has become the owner solicited the help of the partner to take so endowed in searching for such abstract HIV and over duties of running the business, while she re- AIDS policies that salient practice stemming from covered from the epidemic related illness at home. the informal nature of SMMEs has been under
It is plight or to remind them of their scheduled hospiapparent that these corporate social responsibility (CSR) related activities rely on tal visits to collect antiretroviral treatment (ARVs) external resources and social goodwill requiring are rarely regarded as ’best practices’, despite these no internal investment, suggesting that SMMEs practices having the effect of creating a caring lack adequate resources to pursue firm-deter- workplace environment as an HIV and AIDS polimined intervention approaches
Summary
Zimbabwe and South Africa are two Southern African countries bedevilled with the HIV and AIDS epidemic to greater proportions. The South African government runs the world’s largest antiretroviral program to promote access to medication for those living with the epidemic (AVERT, 2019). Few firms have instituted HIV and AIDS policies in the workplace to show commitment to addressing the epidemic, and even among those that do have many are thriving on ’talking the talk’ rather than ’walking the talk’. Based on these observations, one could conclude that the business community still needs to prop up its attention to the epidemic. The study frames a generalized understanding of SMMEs’ HIV and AIDS related social responsibility in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and contributes to a growing body of knowledge on SMME and their context driven CSR practices in general and towards HIV and AIDS
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