Abstract
This research sets out to explore the factors that impact on successful company – community stakeholder engagement in natural resource mining, towards the achievement of the sustainable development goal 16. The sustainable development goal 16, is centered around the promotion of peaceful societies, provision of access to justice for all, and the building of effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels (UN, 2018).The growth of foreign direct investment into developing economies, has led to calls for business to be more sustainability inclined. Therefore, the responsibility lies on business to collaborate with their identified stakeholders, including local communities. However, successful collaborations have been difficult especially, between foreign multinational enterprises in natural resource mining and their local community stakeholders, leading to consequences such as on-going conflicts, hindering progress for the SDG 16. Therefore, situations of conflict around natural resource governance provide a rich contextual setting to study collaborations between foreign mining multinational enterprises and their local community stakeholders, alongside the understudied role of the state in this relationship.
This study therefore focuses on an ongoing conflict and dialogue engagement situation around extractive resources impacting progress towards the SDG 16 in a sub-Saharan country, Nigeria. In so doing, the thesis draws its main theoretical framing from the stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984), dialogue theory (Habermas, 1996) and community engagement strategy (Bowen, Newenham-Kahindi & Herremans, 2010). By so doing, it explores the antecedents of dialogue transformation, process of capture of dialogues and consequences for local community stakeholder engagement.
Methodologically, this study uses a qualitative case study approach, involving cross-sectional design, to explore conflict and the perceptions and experiences of the local community stakeholders, and two oil multinational enterprises within the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
Participants included samples from senior managers, and employees from amongst two major oil and gas multinational enterprises, local community members and leaders at various levels, senior managers from government agencies and staff of non-governmental organisations. The data collected and analysed for this study were from both secondary and primary sources. The secondary data sources were from online corporate reports, community reports, government reports, non-governmental organisations’ reports and newspapers. The primary data source was 49 semi-structured telephone interviews. Data collected was electronically recorded, manually transcribed verbatim and inductively analysed on Nvivo 20 qualitative data analysis software, following the methodology proposed by Gioia, Corley and Hamilton (2013; 2021).
The findings from the analysis were organised into three chapters, leading to valuable insights for collaborations for the sustainable development goal 16. This was finally followed by a discussion of findings chapter, and conclusion of the chapters. The first and second findings chapters (Chapter Five) explore the antecedents of dialogue transformation, and creates a model of the emergence of low-calibre leadership. By so doing, it explores company ownership and stakeholder engagement strategy, and community low calibre leadership as antecedent factors impacting on corporate-community engagement dialogues. It reveals how the state – corporate embeddedness creates an opportunity for corporate unethical stakeholder engagement strategies, and how low calibre community leadership creates opportunities for corporate capture of engagement dialogues. The second findings chapter (Chapter six), gives narratives on the process of capture of engagement dialogues by the mining MNEs and other interested agents. It shows how contextual factors and the antecedent factors identified, are perceived mechanisms for corporate capture of the dialogues for strategic purposes and maintenance of hegemony. The third findings chapter (Chapter Seven), explores the consequences of Chapter Five and Chapter Six for engagement.
Furthermore, it discusses how the mining multinational enterprises utilise the state military as an instrument of force in perceived weakening of community resistance and maintenance of hegemony. All three empirical findings chapters together, form the basis for the development of a framework for effective corporate - local community stakeholder engagement, in natural resource mining for the sustainable development goal 16.
The argument therefore, is that for mining multinational enterprises to have successful relationships with their local stakeholders for the achievement of the sustainable development goal 16, attention must be given to how state embeddedness with company, could reinforce unethical corporate - community stakeholder strategies and behaviours, that reify corporate hegemony and strategic motives for engagement dialogues.
The thesis consequently, contributes to a gap in knowledge around mining multinational enterprises and their local community stakeholder engagement dialogues in sub-Saharan Africa, as extant similar studies are mostly from a Western viewpoint (Kamoche & Wood, 2023). It extends the stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984), by identifying company ownership as important considerations for successful corporate - local community stakeholder engagement. It contributes to our understanding of dialogue (Habermas, 1996), by identifying aspects of power, and how mining MNEs can use community stakeholder engagement dialogues for strategic purposes and for the maintenance of hegemony; yet masked to appear in conformity with the ethics of discourse. A model of mining MNE - local community stakeholder engagement capture is then developed. Finally, it contributes to the community engagement theory (Bowen et al., 2010), by identifying the crucial role of community leadership in the perceptions and outcomes of corporate-community engagement.
| Date of Award | 12 Nov 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Diego Vazquez-Brust (Supervisor) & Hamid Foroughi (Supervisor) |