ECAS 2013

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) provides an opportunity for multinational corporations to establish and maintain beneficial relationships with their host and home publics. The interdependence of the global community resulting from globalization has put the public relations of transnational corporations on the spot to cater for the different expectations of their host and home publics. As a result, the public relations of multinationals have the balancing task of aspiring to global standards that demand more global CSR as well as considering the demands of local situations that prescribes more local CSR. Their duty of managing diverse external publics as well as supervising operations among the various branches even becomes more demanding in the area of CSR because of the increased and contrasting demands of their global and local audiences. International business strategies are accompanied by structural arrangements, complimentary organizational cultures, and specific and distinct headquarters orientations towards subsidiaries that facilitate the maximization of business opportunities available to them. The various strategies were developed to accommodate the need for integration or local responsiveness as regards the product market. Using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, this paper examines how the international business strategies used in the product market respond to local and global CSR issues.

Embedded in the larger contexts of the globally emerging narrative of new markets and entrepreneurship in Africa, I take a look on Ethiopia, a country which for decades had been associated with poverty and famine. When looking at the changes of medial representation of Ethiopia in the past years, recent aesthetics evoke glossy images of the country's economic potential to attract international investors. Likewise critical voices to these idealized representations use sometimes similar forms and even caricature of visual language to portray the flipside of these aspirations. They show that if investments, e.g., large scale land investments, are not being undertaken in a manner that safeguards the social, environmental, and food need of local populations, the results will not match the stories of new prosperity. While some investors, already apply corporate responsibility programmes, one cannot underestimate the asymmetric power relations and the lack of cultural and economic understanding between investors and their "host communities". Empirical examples from Ethiopia will show how rhetorical aesthetics produce the "legitimate theater for practical actions" (Certeau 1984:125) which with its illusionary quality creates divergence between global policies and local realities which cannot possibly be a coherent story at this point in time.

In Africa, the concept of social responsibility is new and quite simplistic. For multinationals, the practice of social responsibility is limited to the supply subsidiaries of certain goods and social services to the communities of their settlement area. It is the case for example of Bouygues in Côte d'Ivoire, Total in Nigeria and Areva in Niger. The problem is that it does not exist, in Africa, a legislative environment favorable to a social responsibility model. This weakness of legislative laws gives rise to adaptations of the role and commitment of the company towards society. Multinationals ignore issues related to compliance with environmental standards, the fight against corruption and social dialogue. For some, the multinational's social responsibility is "the tree that hides the forest." It is neither more nor less than a publicity tool to appear in line with societal aspirations (Renouard, 2008; Coutrot, 2003).

The case of French nuclear group (AREVA) is a good example. His social responsibility contrast with stakeholders critics against him (pollution, degradation environment, groundwater contamination, etc.) and certain realities observed in the field (armed conflict, poverty, social inequalities, disintegration of the local economy). This paper proposes to shed light on the issues and controversies related to the practice of Areva social responsibility and the need to go to public regulation. Because of conflicts between Areva and its stakeholders, public regulation could help enroll more actions of the group in the process of industrial development socially responsible.

The intervention of the private sector in sphere of the development is not a new fact, never the less, the mechanics which them introduce in the countries has a new actor of cooperation are recent, leading to the creation of a new cooperation board. Based on the field investigation, which occurred in Mozambique, this paper wants to demonstrate the lathing between the actors in a unique space of cooperation and the meanings that each element gives to the social responsibility concept. It will comprehend changes and agitations that occurred in the country surrounding the recent discovery of natural gas and oil, as well as the show up of multinational enterprises and the new directives of the government.

The importance of the analysis of this problematic has it's context in a country that the state's budget depends greatly of foreign help, with one of the lowest human development index in the world, in which the structures of social support lack of efficiency , the social responsibility reach a crucial importance.

The way the enterprises use their ethical speech in the country is intrinsically connected, minor some exceptions, to the politics of the state and the contract clauses, making the concept permeable to various meanings and flexible trough the framework of its application. So, minding this, it's made a multidimensional analysis of the phenomena, in the application of the concept in the social collective in which it inserts itself.

The oil companies working in Angola have, through Sonangol, a commitment with the Angolan State to collaborate in order to improve the social conditions of local community and the society in general. In this context, the fields normally benefited are: heath, education, woman promotion, agriculture, environment and also malaria. The aim is to complement the Government efforts in these fields. Thus, the social priorities are identified in the capital or in other towns through joint efforts of the oil companies with local authorities. The implementation of the project needs to be approved by the higher entity responsible for the sector. In addition, the authorities should budget for the maintenance and continuity of the project once the social responsibility of the oil companies is over.

This introduction leads us to two questions: The 1st. In which level and extend have the hosted communities benefiting from oil industry social activities in Angola; The 2nd What is or are the underlying reasons for the oil industry to provide social services to the Angolans communities.

This paper will focus on the extant Corporate Social Responsibility practices in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. The oil and gas sector of Nigeria has been beset by a lot of problems not limited to violence, kidnappings, eco-terrorism, and maladministration amongst others. One way of curing the inherent problems is the use of CSR by many oil Multinational Corporations (MNCs) operating in Nigeria. This paper will focus on the Chinese oil firms operating in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria and investigate if they operate on the same basis as the western firms. This paper will seek to investigate if the variants of CSR practised by non-western firms in Nigeria have had negative or positive impacts in the oil and gas industry especially with China's contribution to Nigerian economy. For example, from about $2 billion in 2000, trade between China and Nigeria rose to around $18 billion in 2010 and between 2003 and 2009, Nigeria was second largest recipient in Africa (second to South Africa) of foreign direct investment from China.

Also is Nigeria better suited for CSR practices from companies China or the West? This paper will seek to answer this connundrum.