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This chapter discusses the special case of extractive industries in relation to susceptibility to corruption, especially in states with weak institutional and governance structures. The systemic nature of this corruption is shown in a vicious cycle of extractive resource dependency and corruption which reinforce each other. The chapter then concentrates on the supply side of corruption, and the role of the private sector with domestic and foreign natural resources companies feeding into systemic corruption. Corruption is underpinned by a high demand, high prices for extractive resources scenario, and mitigated by a low demand, low prices scenario. Transparency oriented, anticorruption measures may not be effective in their own right, but a low demand, low prices scenario could provide an opening for such measures to take root, with accompanying benefits to the citizens of resource rich states and their environment. This suggests taking a contingency approach to dealing with corruption.

The purpose of this study is to examine the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative’s (NEITI) ineffectiveness in delivering public accountability to Nigerian citizens. Although this failure is recognised in prior literature, the authors contend that NEITI’s role is obscured by one-sided links to external factors.

The conceptual framework presented in this study is built around Dillard and Vinnari’s (2019) distinction between different accountability systems and Brown and Dillard’s (2020) complimentary insights on the technologies of hubris and humility. The analytical framework draws from Grant and Keohane’s (2005) modes of accountability, which the authors use to articulate conflicting accountability demands (to-whom and for-what) of NEITI’s operating relationships. Combined, the authors analyse official documents, media, reports and interview responses from members of NEITI’s National Stakeholders Working Group.

This study surfaces a variety of intersecting interests across NEITI’s operational relationships. Some of these interests are mutually beneficial like that of Donors and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Others run counter to each other, such as NEITI’s relationship to the Presidency which illustrates a key source of NEITI’s ineffectiveness. In discussing these interests, the authors articulate their connection to NEITI’s design as an accountability system and its embedded limitations.

The authors provide incremental understanding of prior insight regarding NEITI’s ineffectiveness by drawing attention to its fundamental design as an accountability system and its failure to deliver public accountability. To illuminate these failures, the authors also map NEITI’s competing accountability demands – the nexus of accountability – to demonstrate the complex socio-political reality within which NEITI is expected to operate. The authors posit that NEITI’s ineffectiveness has as much to do with NEITI itself, as it does with external factors like the quality of information disclosed and the unique Nigerian context.

This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of the legal response by Nigeria to the sustainable management and use of revenue from the extractive industry in its enactment of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act 2007. It hopes to contribute to the development of Nigeria’s and other countries’ Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative-based regulations or policies intended for the sustainable exploitation and management of revenue from the extractive industry.

The paper is qualitative and uses critical analysis to explore the potentials and limits of the NEITI Act vis-à-vis its promises and capabilities. The article concentrates on the analysis of the sections providing for the objectives of the Act, its functions, its auditing and reporting requirements and timeline for publications of audits and reports for purposes of transparency, accountability and public debate.

The paper finds that although the intendment of the Act appears positive, the sections providing for the achievement of its objectives and functions are bedeviled with several ambiguities, which undermine its effectiveness.

The NEITI Act is as yet neither a basis for the prosecution of any individual and/or organization nor been legally challenged in court. As such there is no case law to exemplify the practical application of its provisions. However, logical analysis and review of the Act suggests that more needs to be done to increase its effectiveness.

The paper makes the case for the proper definition of terms, stipulation of clear timelines and creation of enforcement functions in legislations, especially in laws that aim to regulate potential irregularities that may provide huge financial rewards for perpetrators and/or undermine a society’s socio-economic development.

This paper boldly questions the effectiveness and functionality of the NEITI Act 2007 and lays out a framework for its improvement. Also due to serious dearth of scholarly work on NEITI Act 2007, this paper is the first research work to explore the effectiveness of the NEITI Act 2007 from a legal perspective.

This study aims to investigate why anti-corruption statutes are not efficient in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum industry.

This study is a doctrinal legal research that embraces a point-by-point comparative methodology with a library research technique.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Finally, this study finds that anti-corruption organisations in Nigeria are not efficient due to non-existence of the Federal Government’s political will to fight corruption, insufficient funds and absence of stringent implementation of the anti-corruption legal regime in the country.

Investigations reveal during this study that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operations are characterised with poor record-keeping, lack of accountability as well as secrecy in the award of oil contracts, oil licence, leases and other financial transactions due to non-disclosure or confidentiality clauses contained in most of these contracts. Also, an arbitration proceeding limit access to their records and some of these agreements under contentions. This has also limited the success of this research work and generalising its findings.

This study recommends, among other reforms, soft law technique and stringent execution of anti-corruption statutes. This study also recommends increment in financial appropriation to Nigeria’s anti-corruption institutions, taking into consideration the finding that a meagre budget is a drawback.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Corruption flourishes due to poor enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention by the government.

The study advocates the need for enhancement of anti-corruption agencies' budgets taking into consideration the finding that meagres budgets are challenge of the agencies.

We develop a conceptual framework as a basis for thinking about the impact of extractive industries and emancipatory potential of alternative accounts. We then review selected alternative accounts literature on some contemporary issues surrounding the extractive industries and identify opportunities for accounting, auditing, and accountability research. We also provide an overview of the other contributions in this special issue.

Drawing on alternative accounts from the popular and social media as well as the alternative accounting literature, this primarily discursive paper provides a contemporary literature review of identified issues within the extractive industries highlighting potential areas for future research. The eight papers that make up the special issue are located within a conceptual framework is employed to illustrate each paper’s contribution to the field.

While accounting has a rich literature covering some of the issues detailed in this paper, this has not necessarily translated to the extractive industries. Few studies in accounting have got “down and dirty” so to speak and engaged directly with those impacted by companies operating in the extractive industries. Those that have, have focused on specific areas such as the Niger Delta. Although prior studies in the social governance literature have tended to focus on disclosure issues, it is questionable whether this work, while informative, has resulted in any meaningful environmental, social or governance (ESG) changes on the part of the extractive industries.

The extensive extractive industries literature both from within and outside the accounting discipline makes a comprehensive review impractical. Drawing on both the accounting literature and other disciplines, this paper identifies areas that warrant further investigation through alternative accounts.

This paper and other contributions to this special issue provide a basis and an agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake interdisciplinary research into the extractive industries.

The purpose of this study is to examine the convergence and determinants of anti-corruption disclosures of extractive firms in Africa.

The study uses an unbalanced panel data of 27 firms operating in 5 African countries covering the period 2006 to 2018. Corporate data is collected from the global reporting initiative (GRI) database. The study uses an index to measure overall disclosure and individual items are coded as binary. The study uses fixed effects, panel logistic and panel-corrected standard error regression, depending on the type of dependent variable used.

The results indicate that the determinants of anti-corruption disclosure are membership in the United Nations global compact (UNGC) and Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, multi-national enterprise status, corruption perception index and human development index (HDI). Specifically, UNGC membership and multi-national status enhance the disclosure on corruption analysis. Countries with a high prevalence of corruption tend to disclose more on corruption analysis. Disclosure on corruption training is high among firms that are UNGC signatories, countries with a high HDI and countries with a high prevalence of corruption. There is a weak effect of firm-level, industry-level and country-level factors on disclosures on corruption response.

The study provides insights on the use of GRI 205: Anti-Corruption, which has relevant implications for practitioners, policymakers and the academic community.

This study is premier in exploring anti-corruption disclosure with a special focus on extractive firms in Africa. It is also unique in providing a test of both beta and sigma convergence among the firms.

This paper sets out to argue for rethinking governance through the prism of Montesquieu's model of checks and balances within state powers. It aims to explore the parallel between the eighteenth century concept of division of power and the current need to engage and balance the powers of the state, industry/markets and civil society in governance for global sustainability. It also takes Montesquieu's doctrine of balance of powers beyond static checks and balances into more dynamic innovation.

This is a conceptual paper that translates seventeenth and eighteenth century state theory into twenty‐first century governance. It also explores how models from innovation may be applied to discuss dynamic aspects of governance.

Drawing on the product‐cycle model, the paper shows how governance entrepreneurship may be explored and understood in innovation terms. The paper explores extractive industries' transparency initiative (EITI) as an illustration of governance innovation to address a gross governance and market failure in the extractive industries – the “resource curse”, particularly in developing countries. It shows how much of EITI's remarkable success in building institutional support is due to actors expanding from their traditional domains into new complementary roles. Each of the three powers – civil society, business, and politics – has exploited their comparative advantages in bringing the governance project forward.

Given the limitation of conventional governance models, the originality/value of the paper lie in its launch of new supplementary governance approaches and their application to the EITI case.

Multinational resource companies (MRCs) are under pressure to become responsible corporate citizens. In particular, stakeholders are demanding more information about the deals these companies negotiate with the host governments of resource-rich nations, and there is general agreement about the need for industry commitment to transparency and the benefits that a mandatory disclosure regime would bring. This paper examines the production of one attempt to regulate disclosures related to payments between MRCs and the governments of nations with resource wealth: Section 1504 of the Dodd–Frank Act.

Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006) Sociology of Worth, the authors examine the comment letters of participants in this process with a view to revealing how stakeholder groups produce justifications to promote their positions vis-à-vis transparency to regulators.

The authors show how justifications were mobilised by various constituents in an effort to shape the definition of transparency and the regulatory architecture that governs disclosure practices. In this case, the collective recognition of desirability of transparency enabled the SEC to suture together the views of constituents to create a shared understanding of the role of the common good as it relates to transparency.

This paper explores an alternative approach to the consideration of comment letters advanced during the process of disclosure-related rule-making. The authors show how a sophisticated regulator may be able to draw together elements stemming from different constituents in a way that appeals to a shared sense of the “common good” in order to produce Final Rules.

This study aims to examine the effect of anti-corruption disclosure on the profitability and financial stability of extractive firms in Africa. It also tests the convergence of profitability and financial stability.

The study uses an unbalanced panel data of 27 firms operating in five African countries covering the period 2006–2018. Anti-corruption assessment is done in line with GRI 205: Anti-Corruption. Profitability is measured using the return on asset and return on equity, whereas the z-score measures financial stability. The study uses the panel-corrected error regression technique for estimation.

There is evidence that corruption disclosure reduces the financial stability of firms. Disclosures on corruption analysis and corruption training are the main factors driving the reduction in financial stability. The effect on profitability is not significant except in the case of disclosure on corruption response, which also reduces profitability. There is strong statistical evidence to suggest that profitability and financial stability of extractive firms converge. This suggests that less-performing firms catch up with high performers.

The study has relevant implications for practitioners, policymakers and the academic community. The study uses data that is skewed towards large extractive firms.

This study is premier in exploring the effect of anti-corruption disclosure on performance metrics among extractive firms in Africa. It is also unique in providing a test of both beta and sigma convergence of performance among the firms.