This article is the guest editors’ introduction to the special issue in Business & Society on “SMEs and CSR in Developing Countries.” The special issue includes four original research articles by Hamann, Smith, Tashman, and Marshall; Allet; Egels-Zandén; and Puppim de Oliveira and Jabbour on various aspects of the relationship of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries.

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Experiences from developed and emerging economies inform us that close state-business relations are crucial for economic development and structural transformation. Based on the positive experiences from other parts of the world, most African governments have begun processes to establish collaborative State Business Relations (SBRs). Amongst other initiatives, these processes include amendments to existing laws to facilitate public-private interaction, direct support to existing business associations, and support for and establishment of publicprivate dialogue fora. This paper draws on an analysis of survey data from 210 local firms, complemented with qualitative data from interviews with 41 firms, a number of 20 key informants and a range of secondary sources on the food processing sectors of Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The paper shows that businesses in these countries have limited policy influence, find policies and programs to be inadequate when targeting the needs and requirements of local businesses and that business associations in these countries are poorly organised. In spite of initiatives taken by the states and other actors, including an increase in the number of formal relations between state and businesses, it is difficult to conclude whether SBRs are collaborative or collusive. The paper contributes to the existing SBR literature by adding a firm-level perspective and by enhancing our knowledge on the usefulness of key theoretical approaches to these issues in an African context.

In light of recent enthusiasm over the African private sector, this paper reviews the business literature on African enterprise development with a view of identifying lacunas and formulating future research agendas. The paper starts out by proposing a framework for organizing the literature based on a distinction between contingency, strategy and performance. In terms of literature focusing on performance, the paper juxtaposes the traditional pessimistic view of African business performance with more recent, optimistic accounts. It is argued that while a growing number of studies suggest profound improvements in the performance of African enterprises, data limitations, conceptual ambiguities, and absence of comprehensive studies still cautions against sweeping generalizations regarding the performance of African enterprises. The paper proceeds to review the literature on factors shaping the performance of African enterprises. It is observed that while much research is focusing on the challenges and (more recently) opportunities of the African business environment, much less attention has been devoted to firm specific capabilities, strategies and management. The paper concludes by advocating a contingency approach to research on African enterprise development that emphasizes the interplay between firm strategy and the specificities of the African business environment.

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