When engagement promises meet business realities: an analysis of strategies, tensions, and roles in the extractive industries

Abstract

Previous research suggests that businesses can contribute to societal welfare by integrating the perspectives of local communities into corporate decision-making processes. However, the need to obtain a Social Licence to Operate (SLO) has pushed firms to implement Corporate Community Engagement (CCE) interventions aimed at achieving consensus, obscuring the contradictory approaches, challenges, and mechanisms that CCE practitioners need to balance when engaging business with local communities.

This dissertation delves into the multifaceted nature of CCE and explores how it manifests at organisational and individual levels of analysis. It contributes to previous Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature (including Political CSR (PCSR), agonistic PCSR, and micro-CSR) shedding light on the organisational worldviews, tensions, and governance roles that CCE practitioners experience in their daily lives.

Paper one contributes to the literature of CSR and CCE by conceptualising three organisational worldviews (utilitarian/instrumental, managerial/descriptive, and relational/normative) that shape the CCE continuum. The conclusion drawn from this paper is that advancing along the continuum necessitates a fundamental shift in organisational worldviews, rather than mere changes to community engagement practices.

Paper two contributes to agonistic PCSR by surfacing the tensions that CCE practitioners face when engaging with extractive industries and marginalised local communities. The conclusion of this paper is that practitioners navigate them employing agonistic politics, a political approach that enables them bring to the forefront the legitimacy of opposing alternatives. Embracing an agonistic approach allows CCE practitioners to engage with both companies and local communities while actively acknowledging the tensions that may arise in the process.

Paper three contributes to micro-CSR and governance literature by introducing an individual-level of analysis into the formation of governance spheres. The paper concludes identifying four governance roles (negotiator, mediator, interpreter, and transformer) that practitioners need to balance in order to generate and maintain governance spheres among private, public, and social actors.

Through these papers, this dissertation provides a more nuanced perspective that goes beyond the conventional business case for CCE.