Abstract
Abstract Although corporations have been often accused of exacerbating social and environmental conditions in developing world regions where they operate, there are companies that sincerely engage in community development initiatives and aim for the delivery of public goods in poor regions. Still there is disquiet on how these companies go about undertaking community development initiatives spawning various forms of criticisms regarding negative side-effects of corporate social action. By means of system dynamics, and based on the longitudinal case study of Tata Chemicals Magadi (Kenya), this paper develops a model of collective action for development. Thereby it sheds light on the variables and mechanisms that are crucial for making community involvement projects an overall success for all actors involved while benefitting the initiating company. The model highlights in particular the importance of “we-feeling” between all relevant stakeholders and of participatory community development capacity. The results indicate that collaborative networks actively including local communities may foster communities’ self-help capacity, while creating a positive feed-back loop to company performance. This study allows exploring new forms of social responsibility that leave behind corporate-focussed models for the sake of inclusive and participatory forms of shared responsibility, which is of relevance on both the academic and practical side, and may also be transferred to an industrialized world context.
Highlights
Corporations have been accused of exacerbating social and environmental conditions in developing world regions where they operate, for example by aggravating poverty and social displacement, backing authoritarian regimes, exploiting workforce and polluting the environment
Community investment is instrumental in nature and yet for companies to address the grand challenge of ‘poverty’, a community development perspective offers an opportunity for companies to: firstly, engage in creating conditions for social, economic and cultural progress for the communities in which they are located (Muthuri et al, 2012) and secondly, support other actors to take collective action to tackle problems that many individuals may be experiencing but might lack the resources, capacity, infrastructure and leadership to accomplish a shared goal with wider public benefits (Gilchrist and Taylor, 2016)
The engagement of corporations in community development is not new but there is a lack of a systems approach to be able to understand the dynamic dependencies and to identify unanticipated side effects
Summary
Corporations have been accused of exacerbating social and environmental conditions in developing world regions where they operate, for example by aggravating poverty and social displacement, backing authoritarian regimes, exploiting workforce and polluting the environment. While there is evidence that firms still pursue and enact responsible business practices in challenging and non-enabling institutional setting as shown by the case study of Fidelity Bank in Nigeria (Amaeshi et al, 2016), there are other voices who see a sharp contradiction between CSR rhetoric and corporate action in a developing country context (Slack, 2012) It seems that the voluntary, philanthropic, and often instrumental stance of CSR—as for example claimed by the much-cited article by Porter and Kramer (2002)—tempts companies to take advantage of institutional weaknesses and is generally at odds with basic tenets of human rights (Rodhouse and Vanclay, 2016) and development. In order to have real impact on the ground, localized approaches have been found to be necessary (Gold et al, 2013), which brings local communities into the focus of attention for any CSR action
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
