Corporate Social Responsibility from a Nigerian Perspective

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the set of standards to which a company subscribes in order to make its impact on society, has the potential to contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction in the world. What can be questioned though is if the Corporate Social Responsibility models developed in the West are the best suited for CSR implementation in all parts of the world. Today there is knowledge that western institutional and management models exported to other regions of the world are not always very successful (Wohlgemuth, Carlsson & Kifle ed, 1998). Research also indicates that the understanding and practice of CSR is socio-culturally framed (Amaeshi, Adi, Ogbechie & Amao, 2006). Despite this knowledge, surprisingly very little of mainstream literature and research focus on how other regions than regions from the West embed the CSR agenda. This thesis therefore, takes its focus on Africa in general, and on Nigeria specifically. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyse the concept of CSR from a Nigerian perspective to form a baseline for further research. The purpose is to examine how Nigerian organisations view their role and part in reaching sustainable growth and development in Nigeria, and to find out what the learning experiences are. The primary data has been collected through a field study, including personal interviews and dialogues with a number of Nigerian organisations. The field study shows that CSR as a concept is relatively new in Nigeria and started off as a response by multinationals to remedy the effects of their extraction activities on the local communities. CSR from a Nigerian perspective can be viewed as two-fold. Firstly, there is the recent development of formal CSR practices mainly driven by MNEs and large national companies. These initiatives are mainly philanthropic with practices and understanding to a large extent “imported” from the West. Secondly, many of the respondents in the field study manifest the existence of informal CSR practices that are linked to cultural Nigerian traits, mostly found in Sees in the formal and informal sector of Nigeria. Traditional values such as people/employees being treated as ends in them, as well as values like sharing and consensus are still strongly manifested in business life in Nigeria. While many pre-colonial systems of organising have ethics and values embedded and which are loosely in usage today they have not been consciously evolved in Nigeria so that the capacity to benchmark them is still at very early stages. Therefore, I recommend further research exploring the formal and informal CSR practices within the SME sector in Nigeria. The results can be used to promote a dialogue between multinational/large companies and Sees to share experiences and learning’s with the purpose of creating a CSR framework that can be embraced by all stakeholders.