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The purpose of this paper is to examine the social sustainability strategies of multinational mining companies in addressing risks in areas of exploratory intensity and contributing to social capital in local communities.

This study is situated within an interpretivist paradigm and uses a qualitative research methodology, drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with multinational mining companies operating in Ghana and key stakeholder groups.

The results of this study show that multinational mining companies use strategies broadly categorised as social responsibility, social compliance, local content and relationship proximity to address challenges embedded in the extractive process.

By examining the strategies in addressing risks to sustainable social development in mining communities, this study contributes to fill the social sustainability gaps in mining research and adds to relevant literature.

This paper aims to examine the barriers to the environmental sustainability practices of large-scale mining companies throughout a mine lifecycle, analysed in the context of the plural and competing logics and tensions in the broader institutional environment.

The paper used a qualitative methodology based on multiple cases involving multinational mining companies, regulators and other major stakeholder groups, as it offers an opportunity for analytical generalisations where the empirical results are compared to previously established theories.

The empirical results indicate that the environmental sustainability barriers are embedded within gaps in Ghana’s natural resources governance framework. The gaps arise out of contradictory interests and values, which hinder the direction and practices of large-scale mining companies.

The findings may only apply to the context of this study and is inadequate as the basis for assessing the effectiveness or otherwise of specific initiatives of large-scale mining firms in Ghana.

This study have implications on how large-scale mining companies and their stakeholders define their values and goals, and engage in a dynamic process to accommodate the multiple and competing logics by implementing effective structures at the organisational and institutional levels.

This paper contributes to the sustainability and institutional complexity perspective by showing that plural logics are often contradictory, but may also be complementary in situations of complicit commonality, hindering sustainable outcomes. The authors argue that this is one of the few studies that have examined the barriers to environmental sustainability explicated in the context of institutional complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process in which organizational members construct and enact public relations (PR) functions as well as how the organization accommodates local values in the PR enactment.

A case study of three large mining companies representing multinational, state-owned, and privately owned mining companies in Indonesia was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 key informants (three top executives and 34 members of PR units).

The Indonesian private mining company and the multinational corporation actively engaged in their environment during the post-Suharto era. They perceived the local community to be more powerful than ever before as a result of the socio-cultural and political changes in the country. They changed their organization designs to gain organizational legitimacy by establishing independent PR divisions at the mining sites and assigning field officers who had the same cultural background as the community. These companies enacted the role of PR as relationship agents and cultural interpreters. Unlike these two companies, the state-owned mining company did not actively search for information from its environment. It relied on the government support for its organizational legitimacy and ignored the environmental changes.

This study is one of the first few studies examining the enactment of PR functions in Indonesia, an emerging country that is under-represented in the marketing and PR literature.

Using a subsidiary of a multinational mining company in Ghana as a case, the purpose of this study is to examine the formal and informal forms and channels of sustainability reporting in the emerging economy’s context.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst managers and employees of the mining company and members of their host community. Based on the interview themes, archival data were extracted from the 2020 Integrated Annual Report of the case company to corroborate the results from the interviews.

The authors found that most of the stakeholders from the host community interviewed were not aware and, to an extent, not interested in formal sustainability reports. In place of that, the management of the mining subsidiary uses informal channels of communication, including meetings and durbars, to verbally engage the local community and their representatives on sustainability matters. Whilst the formal sustainability reports met the internal requirements set by the parent company, the informal engagements were critical for gaining external legitimacy from the host community and other interest groups. Hence, the authors argue that mining companies and their subsidiaries, particularly in developing economies, need to consider informal forms of sustainability reporting alongside the formal channels to engage local communities to address sustainability issues and avert disruptions to their operations.

Sustainability reporting studies have focussed mainly on annual reports published in print or corporate websites, ignoring informal forms of sustainability reporting. This study sheds light on the informal forms of sustainability reporting. This is important as formal forms of sustainability reporting may be less useful for engaging local mining communities in developing economy contexts.

This study was aimed at examining the motivations, elements and channels of sustainability reporting of a multinational mining company that operates a subsidiary in Ghana. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among the company’s key stakeholders. These informants were drawn from the case company, a public regulatory agency, members and the opinion leaders of the company’s host community. In addition to the primary data, secondary documents were relied upon to corroborate the views shared by the interviewees. We discovered that while the sustainability reporting mechanism was necessary for gaining internal legitimacy with the parent company, to a large extent, the host community did not appreciate the importance of that report. In place of that the management of the mining subsidiary employed less-formal channels of communication to engage the community representatives on matters relating to sustainability. Our findings suggest that the sustainability reporting process must be adaptable and not always communicated formally. Therefore, the process needs to be re-organised to meet the expectations of all key stakeholders within the subsidiary companies’ jurisdictions. To meet the expectation of stakeholders and gain legitimacy, those charged with the governance of subsidiary companies need to contextualise their sustainability reporting strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate why environmentally-sensitive companies still face criticism despite the extensive disclosures in their annual reports. This paper explores the extent of site-specific social, environmental and ethical (SEE) reporting by mining companies operating in Ghana.

The authors conduct an interpretive content analysis of the annual/integrated reports of mining companies for the years 2009–2014 to extract site-specific SEE information relating to the companies’ mining operations in Ghana. The authors also theorise these actions using the existentialist work of Jean-Paul Sartre, in particular his work on “bad faith, nothingness and authenticity”.

The findings suggest that SEE information disclosure at site-specific level remains problematic because of bad faith and inauthenticity by mining companies attempting to placate a range of stakeholders. Bad faith represents a form of self-deception or internal denial which manifests in corporate narratives. Inauthenticity is a self-awareness that culminates in the denunciation of corporate identity and the pursuit of external expectations. The effect is the production of inauthentic corporate accounts that is constrained by the assumption made on stakeholder expectation.

The authors apply a Sartrean lens to explore site-specific SEE. Furthermore, the authors seek to expand the social accounting research domain by drawing on Sartre’s work on “bad faith” and “nothingness”. Sartre’s work to the best of the authors’ knowledge is not explored in social accounting research.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the management development (MD) programme in the Ghanaian mining industry. A legal requirement aimed at equipping national managers for eventual takeover of the management of industry from expatriates, the programme is analysed to ascertain the willingness to implement and the state of implementation by multinational companies operation in the industry.

The study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA), a problem-identification and problem-solving analytical tool to identify any obstacles suppressing the implementation and possible ways past the obstacles. Data for analysis were collected from 26 national managers from industry who were interviewed to gather views and expectations on their development.

Key findings include domination and hegemonic dynamics of expatriates through sustained power over the control of the MD process, CDA’s emancipatory power succeeds in identifying unrealised possibilities for tackling the MD problem for a social change (development of national managers) in industry, and non-implementation of the MD programme contributed by expatriates, the government of Ghana, and senior national managers.

The programme has the potential of developing national managers for eventual takeover from expatriates, but requires implementing the law to the latter, including denying foreign subsidiaries mining lease if they fail to provide the adhere to localisation plans.

The paper extends literature on management of Western multinational subsidiaries in developing countries, revealing power and control over human resource practices, and MD in their foreign subsidiaries. It also contributes to literature on suppression of indigenous employees by other indigenous employees (the “colonised elites”), contrary to what is expected from indigenous people towards the development of their colleagues.

The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about community relations and development (CRD) activities done in conjunction with mining activities of multinational companies affecting indigenous peoples and thus help improve relationships between them, despite continuing bad consequences the people continue to endure. It is through such better relationships that these consequences may be redressed and mitigated, and greater sharing of benefits of mining may occur, bearing in mind what constitutes benefits may differ from the perspectives of the indigenous peoples and the miners.

A qualitative approach is taken, including interviews with company officials responsible for CRD activities, elaborated with observations, company and public documents and previous literature about these mining operations and the peoples.

The CRD activities have gradually increased compared with their absence previously. They are officially labelled social investment in community development programmes, and are funded from profits and couched in terms of human development, human rights, preservation of culture and physical development of infrastructure. Dissatisfied with programme quality and relevance, company officials now relate with indigenous people, their leaders and representatives in ways called engagement and partnerships.

The findings can inform policies and practices of the parties to CRD, which in this West Papua case would be the miners and their company, CRD practitioners, the indigenous peoples and the civil authorities at the local and national level and aid industry participants.

The study acknowledges and addresses social initiatives to develop the indigenous peoples affected by mining.

The study extends older studies in the same territory before CRD had matured, and corroborates and elaborates other studies of CRD in different territories.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how and what drives corporate social responsibility (CSR) in host communities of mining companies in developing countries.

To address this knowledge gap, this paper used Ghana as a test case and conducted 24 in-depth interviews with participants drawn from mining host communities.

The paper discovered that while CSR is broadly understood and encompasses six thematic categories in the mining host communities, there are emphases on philanthropic and environmental responsibilities. Contrary to the evidence found in other studies, this paper discovered that CSR rhetoric plays a more positive/significant role than so far explored in CSR research, as it incentivizes the host communities to push for the fulfilment of their CSR expectations and/or CSR initiatives proposed by mining companies.

Quantitative studies are needed to strengthen the findings from the present paper.

Because developing countries share similar socio-economic and geo-political realities, the findings of this paper may be applicable not only for CSR advocates, but also for policy-makers in developing countries.

The paper provides new inputs from a developing country perspective to the current debate about the CSR performance of the extractive industry.

Drawing upon research on the initiatives of Canadian mining companies, this paper examines private efforts in the mining sector to promote acceptable standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This paper asks how important emerging global CSR norms have been in influencing the adoption of CSR policies. Sustainable development is a universally accepted principle of environmental protection, and serves as an important indicator of the influence of global CSR norms on mining companies. Most mining companies have embraced the concept of sustainable development to frame their CSR policies. Emerging global CSR norms have thereby set the macro‐level context in which CSR policies have been adopted and evolved at the micro level.