Development on whose terms?: CSR discourse and social realities in Papua New Guinea's extractive industries sector

Emma Gilberthorpe and Glenn Banks

Resources Policy, 2012, vol. 37, issue 2, 185-193

Abstract: The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the extractive industries represents a bid to legitimize the sector after decades of environmental disasters and the trampling of indigenous rights. But whilst the rise in CSR has meant safer technologies and better stakeholder engagement, there is little evidence of any real socio-economic development at the grassroots. This paper examines the uneasy relationship existing between the strategic ‘business model’ of CSR and the brand of development it delivers. Using evidence from two multinational extractive industries in Papua New Guinea, we show how weaknesses in CSR practice come from greater emphasis on meeting global ‘performance standards’ than on the specificities of the social contexts in which strategies are implemented. These weaknesses, we argue, lead to ill-conceived and inappropriate development programmes that generate inequality, fragmentation, and social and economic insecurity. We conclude that greater engagement with affected communities will facilitate the development of more mutually beneficial and appropriate CSR strategies.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility (CSR); Sustainable development; Resource extraction; Mining; Social organization; Papua New Guinea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420711000614
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:37:y:2012:i:2:p:185-193

DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2011.09.005

Access Statistics for this article

Resources Policy is currently edited by R. G. Eggert

More articles in Resources Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).