De Beers, Anglo American and Optima Magazine

• Published date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12058
• Date: 01 September 2015
• Author: Debra R. Comer,Michael Schwartz

De Beers, Anglo American and

Optima Magazine1

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ AND DEBRA R. COMER

ABSTRACT

We consider in this article how the largest corporations

in Apartheid South Africa used an in-house magazine to

manipulate their shareholders’ perceptions of the current

political scenario. We argue that in that era, business felt

compelled to respond to the portrayal of events in South

Africa presented by the international media. Further-

more, we examine the motivation of business for doing so

and why that motivation does not exist in post-apartheid

South Africa.

INTRODUCTION

Some have explored the relationship between the media

and the government in post-apartheid South Africa

(Wasserman and de Beer 2005), but we are interested in

the business sector. We consider the relationship between the

international media and the corporate sector in post-apartheid

South Africa, and compare it with that relationship in Apartheid

South Africa. In doing so, we heed Ciulla’s (2011) advice to look to

Michael Schwartz is Associate Professor at the School of Economics, Finance and

Marketing, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. E-mail:

michael.schwartz@rmit.edu.au. Debra R. Comer is Professor at the Department of Manage-

ment and Entrepreneurship, Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY.

E-mail: Debra.R.Comer@hofstra.edu.

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Business and Society Review 120:3 329–361

© 2015 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.,

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

the past for insight into the ethical behavior of business people as

“history may be another way to teach ethics” (p. 335). In particu-

lar, we argue that what the international media reported had

more substantial implications for the South African corporate

sector during Apartheid than afterwards, and as a result, in

Apartheid South Africa, some in the corporate sector used their

own media to counter the international media. How they did so

and the implications thereof are the focus of this article.

In Apartheid South Africa, the corporate sector faced the threat

of divestment by multinational corporations and further sanctions

by foreign governments. It is thus unsurprising that South

African corporations were very sensitive to how the international

media portrayed their country. That portrayal had major implica-

tions for their profitability and ultimate survival. In post-

apartheid South Africa, everything is different. Now that the

stigma of Apartheid has gone, multinationals invest if they per-

ceive it profitable to do so and foreign governments do not agitate

for sanctions. As such, South Africa’s corporations are no longer

hostage to those earlier circumstances and do not need to present

their version of “reality” in their country.

South Africa continues to be beset by major social problems,

even if these no longer directly affect its corporate sector. That

South Africa’s corporations currently are less vocal in responding

to the international media might be due to the fact that these

corporations, given the demise of Apartheid, no longer feel so

gravely affected by how they are portrayed globally. But regardless

of that, there is something more.

In both the Apartheid and post-apartheid periods, the corporate

sector had the ability to respond to the sociopolitical reality in

which they existed. Some South African businesses protested

against the advent of Apartheid in the early 1950s, and despite

the growing power of the government, did not suffer for doing so

(Greenberg 1980). It is worth considering which businesses pro-

tested at that time. British-owned banks with a dominant pres-

ence in the South African banking sector could easily have

protested. They were “being courted by the government for the

international financing they could offer” (Schwartz 1996, p. 115).

Their head offices in London would have claimed to abhor such

racial discrimination. There was little the South African govern-

ment could have done had these banks refused to segregate their

330 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW

workplaces and their staff. But they never protested. However,

some local manufacturers who might have feared the loss of

government tenders, and perhaps other negative consequences

too, refused to comply with government demands to impose

Apartheid in their workplaces: and they did so successfully

(Greenberg 1980). Business therefore had the ability to respond

had they so wished. Both the nature of that response and the

validity of that response depended on their moral courage (Comer

and Vega 2011). Much of course depends on the specific circum-

stances they experienced. Our article is focused upon and exam-

ines their historical circumstances during the last years of the

Apartheid era.

The influential and prestigious British magazine, The Econo-

mist, has described South Africa as weakening both economically

and socially (The Economist October 20–26, 2012, p. 11). The

Economist is sold in South Africa. Because it is sold in South

Africa, it appears there in news agents and other such retail

outlets. And its front cover (see Figure 1), a photograph of

belligerent-looking mobs wielding rudimentary, but functional

weapons, would have aroused misgivings in any reasonable

South African who saw it. Above the photo were the words “Cry,

the beloved country: South Africa’s sad decline.” But what is of

singular note is the highly muted response of the corporate

sector to that cover photograph on The Economist. Whereas

South African government officials protested, South African busi-

nesspeople did not. That was far from the case in Apartheid

South Africa.

The financial press reported on the difficult relationship

between South Africa’s largest corporation, Anglo American, and

the South African government, given Anglo’s plans to axe 14,000

jobs from their hard hit platinum division. The difficulty of such

job cuts was exacerbated by the massacre of workers at the

Marikana platinum mine, where police killed nearly 50 workers,

most of them shot in the back (Laing 2012). This was the largest

slaughter of civilians in the country since the Sharpeville

shootings in 1960. Outgoing Anglo American chief executive

Cynthia Carroll, “speaking with the freedom that comes from

knowing her time at Anglo is almost over” (Garvey 2013, p. 30),

called upon the South African government to provide greater

stability to the mining industry.

331SCHWARTZ AND COMER