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There is no doubt that there is a need for new traditions, that is, wisdoms for enhanced responsible business in Africa. As one of the oldest world economies, Africa has a rich history of responsible indigenous business traditions that have sustained and supported her people’s principled business entrepreneurship over the centuries. However, there is little knowledge about these African responsible indigenous business traditions in the international literature. Currently, internationally familiar Western responsible business traditions dominate global responsible management knowledge and practice. The chapter explores responsible indigenous business traditions amongst the Sesotho-speaking people of Southern Africa called Basotho, bringing to light an aspect of responsible indigenous business management knowledge and practice from Southern Africa. These Basotho’s responsible indigenous business traditions embedded in Mokorotlo business model are Seahlolo, that is, communal, or mutual aid sharing, Letsema, that is, communal work party, Tsimo-ea-lira, that is, the field of enemies, Moelela, that is, food paid for work at threshing time, and Mafisa, that is, communal livestock loaning. The chapter concludes by suggesting that these Mokorotlo business traditions are prima facie attractive to be taken seriously in the global responsible management knowledge and practice.

This chapter explores African indigenous wisdom and its orientation to the common good in the practices that characterise responsible leadership and entrepreneurship. Traditionally, a wise leader was grown from the community and steeped in its communitarian traditions which led the leader to apply practical wisdom in seeking the collective good. These considerations of such wise practices are central to responsible management. Based on a qualitative literature review that is complemented with a micro-study (semi-structured interviews) of African sages and on the analysis of wisdom found by chapter contributors to this volume, insights indigenous to Africa are presented and then discussed. The countries referenced across the two studies are Kenya and Uganda (Eastern Africa), Ghana and Nigeria (Western Africa), Egypt (Northern Africa) and South Africa (Southern Africa), thereby providing some geographical spread though far from being exhaustive.

This chapter examines the common good orientation of (i) African indigenous wisdom about responsible management in the light of (ii) Aristotelian epistemic architecture of phronesis and (iii) Catholic Social Teaching. Looking at what the chapter contributors found in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa, Lesotho, Uganda, Cameroon, and Egypt, the authors compare and contrast what common good means in these three great traditions that have done much to shape the world into what it is today and that can continue to help redirect humans into more responsible and sustainable domains of flourishing. The results show that the three traditions have much in common albeit with some nuances due to the disparity in their contexts and cultural settings. The expectation that the wise business leader should judge rightly and act ethically in pursuance of the common good is common to all three. The communitarian element of African indigenous wisdom stands out as the polis where wise leaders are taught and groomed for their responsibilities to the community. Where the person is disconnected from this reality of community, it could become more difficult for him or her to attain and maintain moral uprightness.