African Journal of Business Ethics

Sustainability stories from the North and South – on the ethics and politics of sustainability?

Prof Neil Eccles, Prof Kenneth Jørgensen, Prof Geoff Goldman — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:17:27 +0000

Towards an ethics of freedom: The politics of storytelling in organisations

Prof Kenneth Jørgensen — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:08:48 +0000

This article engages with sustainability storytelling from the perspective of freedom. Freedom is discussed in relation to a politics of storytelling that can counter power. Freedom, it is argued, is enacted in genuine storytelling and is experienced between people. The conditions of the possibility of ethics in organisations are thus conditioned on the political framing of the spaces between people in terms of how they condition how people may appear in storytelling and how people together transform these spaces for future appearances. Arendt’s ethics of freedom is contrasted with the concept of freedom embedded in neoliberal capitalism and related to sustainability. Genuine storytelling is to bring something new into existence from the condition of plurality and responsibility for the world. Storytelling presumes a space for plural political participation. Freedom therefore also forwards attention towards the material possibilities that allow people to participate and appear as unique subjects. The article ends by positioning Arendt’s storytelling in relation to a storytelling model for transitioning
to sustainability, which positions Latour’s notion of Gaia as the centre of four storytelling cycles.

Stories of African dreamers: The Business Ethics Network of Africa (BEN-Africa)

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:34:01 +0000

BEN-Africa has rather a unique story. An organisation established in 1999 with the aspiration of furthering business ethics on the African continent, it has evolved into a respected entity that provides various fora to collaborate, discuss, and promote business ethics. Activities include seminars and webinars, publication of the respectable African Journal of Business Ethics, awarding of the Order of the Baobab, and the annual BEN-Africa Conference. But the real BEN-Africa story lies with the organisation’s members, volunteers, and leaders.
Here are their stories.

Developing an African theory of good environmental leadership: Integrating ukama into Metz’s African theory of good leadership

Dr Jessica van Jaarsveld — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:19:39 +0000

The leadership model proposed by Metz, grounded in the African philosophy of ubuntu, provides a framework for understanding the traits of African leadership as can be applied in business. This article proposes an extension of these ideas by utilising the African concept of ukama to offer a conceptualisation of what constitutes environmental leadership in African business contexts. The article begins by drawing on key authors to outline the concept of ukama and highlights the focus ukama imparts on the interdependence between humans and the natural world. It then looks at the implications of ukama’s principles in the realm of business leadership, illustrating how the qualities of ukama-infused leadership can be translated into managing ecological challenges. The article motivates the importance of such a perspective, noting the environmental threats Africa faces, the importance of incorporating Indigenous frameworks into proposed solutions, and storytelling as a practical means of embedding these values.

“I have to scream and yell”: A Black man’s, a Black woman’s and a White man’s reflections on gendered racial ‘micro’-aggressions in a workplace

Mr Keoagile Mhlakaza, Dr Nompe Ntombela, Prof Neil Eccles — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:27:15 +0000

Sustainability is essentially the pursuit of intra- and intergenerational justice. Following from this, we contend that any form of discrimination in any context, including those arising out of gender, race, and the intersection between them, constitutes a sustainability problem. Here, we relate a journey of ‘discovery’ and/or ‘confirmation’ which we undertook based on the daily lived experiences of gendered racial ‘micro’-aggressions of Black women working in the telecoms sector in South Africa. Our act of telling this story in the space of appearance opened up by this special issue is an inherently political act, making this article an example of Freirean conscientisation. Our hope is that we contribute towards rendering the forms of aggression related to us slightly more visible to anyone who reads this article, on the assumption that visible oppression is less easy to stomach.

My interview with a mountain: A curious and imaginative practice of speculative fabulation

Ms Tracy Trägårdh — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:34:24 +0000

How do we listen to the unheard voices of the landscape and tell their stories? This article explores Hannah Arendt’s concept of plurality, Ursula Le Guin’s storytelling, and Aldo Leopold’s ecological philosophy to understand and engage with multispecies stories. Through a storytelling session with a coffee farmer and a speculative interview with a mountain, inspired by Le Guin’s (2015 [1974]) short story ‘The Author of the Acacia Seeds’, this article conducts a playful and creative act of fabulation. Moving beyond Arendt’s (2018) concept of plurality, it considers a political space open to heterogeneity. This approach invites reflection on organisations’ ethical obligations concerning heterogeneity. By relating Arendt’s ideas to Leopold’s (1949) idea to “think like a mountain”, the article highlights how both perspectives encourage a broader, more ethical engagement with the world. This interdisciplinary exploration bridges creativity, philosophy, and ethics, creating a deeper connection between humans and the worlds around us.