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6 - Human Resource Management and Political CSR in Global Supply Chains: Causes and Consequences of Host Communities’ Enduring Struggles

from Part I - Institutions, CSR Conceptualizations and Sustainable Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2019

By
Hedda Ofoole Knoll  and
Frederick Ahen
Edited by
Onyeka Osuji ,
Franklin N. Ngwu  and
Dima Jamali
Onyeka Osuji
Affiliation:
University of Essex
Franklin N. Ngwu
Affiliation:
Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria
Dima Jamali
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut
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Summary

Little is known about how subsidiaries of MNCs implement political CSR across Africa. The purpose of this paper is to determine how corporations respond to the many ‘pressures’ to align competing socioeconomic demands through political CSR and how that affects local communities in global supply chains. Based on field work in an emerging economy, we focus on a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest multinational palm oil producers and its HR Management. Contrary to what extant literature presents as pressures on MNCs to fulfil demands that are neither related to their raison d’être nor competence, we found that socioeconomic demands in low-income countries are rather the local communities’ natural response to shocks emanating from the presence of the subsidiary in their community. The ensuing dramatic changes in the socio-cultural, political and economic institutions underpinning their way of life are articulated as ‘5Ds’: dispossession of land; displacement of people; destruction of the environment; desperation; and de-democratization through disenfranchisement. Our micro-level analysis reveals HR managers’ dilemma. They are mostly torn between responding to community’s grievances and the profit-maximization intents of the firm. They make attempts to liaise and create dialogue but ultimately loyalty to the subsidiary is privileged over social demands.

Keywords

CSR Governance MechanismsGlobal Supply ChainHuman Resource ManagementLow-Income CountriesPolitical CSRWECS Africa
Type
Chapter
Information
Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing and Emerging Markets
Institutions, Actors and Sustainable Development
 , pp. 98 - 118
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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