EVALUATING CORPORATE SOCIAL PERFORMANCE AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: AN APPLICATION TO NIGERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT For many years the general relationship between the International Oil Companies (IOCs) and the Local Oil Producing Communities (OPCs) in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria (NDR) has gone frosty and, indeed, culminated in incidents of operational disruptions and violent attacks as self-help strategies adopted by the OPCs to press demands. This is against the backdrop of increasingly huge Corporate Social Performance (CSP) investments declared by the IOCs. This indicates a gap between declared investments and the perception of the OPCs. Given the increasing level of complexity and uncertainty in the global business environment, it is imperative that the IOCs objectively evaluate such perception gap as part of adaptive strategies with a view to redefining their social responsibilities, reassessing the social issues involved as well as realigning their social response philosophies. In this article three main research objectives were tackled, namely: (1) to examine the CSP policies and practices of the IOCs, and to evaluate their effectiveness; (2) to find out the OPCs' general perception of CSP of the IOCs operating in their communities; and (3) to explore the implications of CSP management and implementation strategies of the IOCs on the achievement of sustainable community development. The study is a qualitative research and, therefore, interviews were conducted to generate data. The interview questions used in were all based on the theoretical evaluation models adopted for the study. From the study, the general perception of the OPCs was found to be that the CSP policies and practices of the IOCs have not been as effective as expected compared to the huge investments declared. Thus, the study found that the OPCs' perception regarding the response attitude of the IOCs to their social responsibilities is generally reactive and defensive. Keywords Corporate social performance, corporate social responsibility, sustainable community