Corporate social responsibility and community development : a study of Nigerian telecommunications industry

This study sets out to investigate the extent to which embracing corporate social responsibilities (CSR) within the telecommunications industry has contributed to the development of the Nigerian community using a comparative case study of four telecommunications companies in Nigeria, and covering the period 2008 to 2012. The study also investigated the CSR expectations of Nigerians most of whom patronize at least one of the case study companies and the motivations for CSR engagements of the case study telecommunications companies. The study adopted the use of qualitative research approach while the philosophical consideration that guided the research adopted subjectivist ontology and interpretivists epistemology which was informed by social constructivism. The data used came from primary and secondary sources. The study employed a semi-structured interview instrument to gather data from the study companies and beneficiary communities using snowball sampling technique to determine the beneficiary communities. 

The study employed the use of content analysis method to analyse the data and identified the relationship between what the CSR contributions of the case study telecommunications companies are to the development of the communities where the companies operate. This is complemented with documentary analysis of the telecommunications companies’ annual accounts. Key concepts that emerged from the research findings are educational development, health care provision, economic empowerment, poverty alleviation and sports development. The research findings suggest that CSR practices of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria tilted towards corporate philanthropy. The findings also indicates that some of the CSR projects undertaken by the study telecommunications companies may not 2 be the essential needs of the community, therefore there is need to conduct prior stakeholder engagement with community in order to determine the needs of the community before implementation of CSR programmes. The thesis concluded by drawing attention to the reciprocal responsibility of the CSR benefiting communities by way of giving social licence for continued operations of the telecommunications companies in their community of operations.