Contextualising and critically theorising corporate social responsibility reporting: Dynamics of the late Mubarak Era in Egypt

Abstract This study offers an in-depth contextualisation and critical analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting embedded in the rich context of Egypt’s late Mubarak era. It responds to calls for theoretically informed research into CSR reporting in diverse, including less developed country and historical, contexts. The study is informed by a critical theoretical, poststructuralist and post-Marxist reading of accounting (including CSR reporting) (see Gallhofer & Haslam, 2003, 2019; Brown, 2009, 2017; Dillard & Brown, 2012; Brown & Dillard, 2013; Gallhofer, Haslam, & Yonekura, 2015). Notably, the analysis draws from Gallhofer and Haslam (2019) understanding of accounting as a mix of emancipatory and repressive dimensions and as a dynamic practice that can become, overall, more (or less) emancipatory in shifting contexts. The study explores emancipatory and repressive actualities and potentialities of CSR reporting, including instances reflecting valued particularity, in the dynamics of Egypt’s late Mubarak era, a multi-faceted, conflict-ridden, context reflecting forces of globalisation/globalism and technological change. Pursuing this, the study analyses material garnered via in-depth interviews (around perceptions of and attitudes towards CSR reporting) of key constituencies in the context. The study yields insights in terms of critical understanding and praxis, as envisaged in critical theorising.