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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Shell Nigeria’s Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) promotes corporate-community accountability as a basis for fostering sustainable community development in the Niger Delta.

Shell Nigeria’s GMoU stand-alone reports were analysed through the lenses of accountability and transparency theoretical frameworks to explore the extent to which GMoU, as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, is dialogically embedded and practised. Meaning-oriented content analysis was deductively used to isolate pertinent themes and generate findings from the background theoretical literature.

The authors find that Shell discursively appropriates the meaning of accountability and transparency in a manner that allows it to maintain its social legitimacy and the asymmetric power relations between itself and host communities whilst restricting communities’ agency to hold it accountable. Shell does this by interpreting the notion of participation restrictively, selectively deploying the concept of transparency and accountability and subtly exerting excessive control over the GMoU. Thus, the GMoU’s potential to contribute to sustainable community development and positive corporate-community relation is unlikely tenable.

Accountability and transparency are core and critical to corporate-community relations and for achieving community development CSR objectives, but are often taken for granted or ignored in the CSR literature on the Niger Delta of Nigeria. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by using accountability and transparency lenses to unpick GMoU model and contribute to studies on CSR practices by oil multinational corporations (MNCs) in developing countries. Indeed, the use of these lenses to explore CSR process offers new insights as to why CSR practices have failed to contribute to sustainable community development despite increased community spending by oil MNCs.

Reintegration programs have emerged as part of the regimes of care for survivors of human trafficking. However, empirical analysis of the reintegration outcomes for survivors remains limited in the African context. Hence, this paper aims to examine the challenges and opportunities of reintegration assistance programs for survivors of human trafficking in Nigeria.

Drawing on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with repatriated women who have accessed reintegration assistance in Nigeria, and data was analyzed using thematic analysis.

The findings suggest that while the reintegration programs might address the procedural aspect of reintegration, the achievement of substantive reintegration remains incomplete. This is because of the structural conditions of the context within which reintegration is supposed to occur.

There is a need to take seriously the distinction between the reintegration of survivors into a new community or a former community in the design of a regime of care for survivors of human trafficking in Africa. Crucially, the focus on procedural reintegration should not also divert attention away from the structural conditions and reforms needed to ensure survivors achieve substantive reintegration.

This paper contributes to the limited literature on life after trafficking and demonstrates the strengths and limitations of reintegration programs as a regime of care for survivors of human trafficking. In addition, this study empirically grounded the theoretical distinction between different aspects of the process of reintegration.

Drawing on theories of organisational identity, social exchange and stakeholder engagement, this study aims to investigate the processes and practices involved in the formation and shaping of identities of social enterprises (SEs) that operate in the Malawian hospitality and tourism industry.

Drawing on an interpretive research paradigm, data collected from 22 semi-structured interviews with four founders of case SEs and stakeholders, and SEs’ reports and other publicly available documents were generated and analysed following a grounded theory approach.

The authors show that the trajectory SEs followed and the exchanges that occurred with the external stakeholders allowed three out of four case SEs to swiftly re-evaluate their pre-existing identities and work towards the formation of their new identities.

This study provides an opportunity for policymakers and other actors in developing countries to frame and place SEs in line with the wider societal realities in such contexts. This may in turn call for policymakers to increase actors’ engagement with SEs and provide the necessary support that can allow SEs to be an effective force for the public good.

This paper highlights the role of exchanges with external stakeholders in identity formation and shaping within SEs in the hospitality and tourism sector in the context of institutional voids. By adopting the social exchange theory, this paper introduces a dynamic lens to identity formation and shaping and helps to explain how, across different tourism ventures, stakeholder engagement and different modes of exchange unfold in the inter-organisational and community domains. It further shows how the ventures’ value orientations on the one hand, and stakeholder engagement practices and the ensuing exchanges, on the other hand, are closely interwoven.

The purpose of this chapter is to critically examine the extent to which oil multinational corporations (MNCs) can be both money makers and peace makers in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, and to consider its implication for the role of business in conflict mitigation in resource-rich African countries.

The chapter presents a theoretical analysis based on secondary data and empirical research.

There is now an emerging consensus that business can be peace makers and money makers in developing countries as part of their social responsibility. However, the tendency to explore business-conflict linkage largely from a business perspective and to see conflict as an “incidence” that business has to respond to, as opposed to a “dynamic process” that is a function of the breakdown of stakeholder relationship, limits our understanding of the relationship between business and conflict. Focusing on the Niger Delta in Nigeria, it is argued that the contradictory tension inherent in the peace making efforts of oil MNCs and the nature of their core business activities (i.e., oil extraction) limits the incentives and undermines the capacity of oil MNCs to be peace makers.

The chapter contributes a critical perspective to the literature on business and conflict informed by nearly two decades of empirical research undertaken by the author in Africa. It analyzes how contextual factors in resource-rich African countries, previously neglected in the literature, influence both the willingness and ability of business to contribute to peace. It concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications for the role of business in conflict zones.

This chapter introduces this book’s topics, purpose, and key themes. It summarizes the main objective of this book which is to examine the trends in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability in developing and emerging economies.

This chapter reviews the extant literature and chapters and offers conceptual development.

Discussion on CSR and sustainability concepts is growing in developing countries, and many stakeholders including businesses, governments, and universities are working toward achieving sustainability. In addition, it is well documented that multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in developing economies contribute significantly to job creation, growth and development, and poverty alleviation. However, when compared to developed countries there is a general perception that companies, in particular MNEs, do not pay much attention to CSR and sustainability issues. The lack of sophisticated institutional developments and capability in many developing economies compound the situation. Thus, business CSR and sustainability practices play a major role in improving stakeholder relationships.

This chapter suggests that in order for developing and emerging economies to move forward and achieve the gains from globalization; businesses, governments, and other stakeholders should work together to benefit from the various initiatives on CSR and sustainability jointly put together for the betterment of the citizens and a prosperous economy.

This chapter contributes to the debate on trends in CSR and sustainability in developing/emerging economies by critically examines what the notions really mean in developing and emerging economies. It emphasizes that CSR and sustainability mean contributing to the well-being of citizens and respond positively to various stakeholder demands by improving the host countries and communities through participation in economic progress, social well-being, improvement in environmental practices, and involvement in citizens’ empowerment and institutional building.

This paper aims to present a systematic review of scholarly articles focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries and published during the period 2004 to 2014 in international journals.

This paper applied a bibliometric analysis to 101 articles on CSR research focused on developing countries.

The study confirms that the most prevalent CSR themes addressed in journals have been social issues, followed by environmental issues in a distant second, with ethics-related issues receiving the least attention. Also, as CSR research in developing countries constitutes an emerging stream of literature, an overwhelming dominance of empirical (qualitative) papers aimed at exploring and/or seeking interpretations to CSR motivations have been confirmed.

An important limitation of this study is in relation to the methods applied. In the first place, this review is based on two electronic databases: ABI/INFORM Global (ProQuest) and Web of Science Core Collection: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED). This means that research published in international journals that are not included in either of these databases will be omitted.

This review provides useful guidance for future CSR research focused on developing countries thereby providing a foundation for future research in this stream of CSR research.

The findings of this study suggest that much CSR knowledge in developing countries reflects the unique social issues that call for companies to adopt different CSR interventions when operating in developing countries.

Although this paper is not the first to systematically review CSR research, but it is one of the initial attempts, to the best of the knowledge, to systematically review the state of CSR knowledge in the context of developing countries.