Responding Creatively to Faulty Corporate Social Responsibility Practices: The Case of Nigeria’s Niger Delta

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in the Niger Delta of Nigeria has left significant impacts on the local communities. While analysts have explained how CSR has either succeeded or failed in this oil rich zone, over the years, their analyses, however, are yet to highlight sufficiently, the extent to which the responses to CSR practices have either strengthened or weakened the processes and practices of CSR. What are the implications of such responses for CSR theory and practice. A field visit to the Niger Delta shows that local communities have had to modify their traditional alliances and practices in order to sustain the flow of the share of oil wealth accessible to them via CSR. This creative response to faulty CSR practices stems possible violent reactions against the transnational corporations and/or the state government as much as it encourages the sustenance of CSR in the community. Besides, it highlights the fact that the substitution of ‘long term value maximization’ for ‘short-term profit at any cost’ in the corporate vocabulary notwithstanding, corporate conception and practice of CSR hardly excludes window dressing.