| Summary: | Corporate Community Investment (CCI) has become common practice for multinational companies operating in developing countries. It can serve not only to achieve a social license to operate from host communities, but also to further business interests through enhanced reputation, development of an employable local workforce, and avoidance of social unrest and conflict. This research looks at how members of a community impact upon the level of community participation in the arena of CCI. A case study of London Mining Company (LMC), an international iron ore extractor in Sierra Leone is used in order to explore how complex community structures determine which community stakeholders are engaged with, and the challenges that their salience creates in ensuring representative participation and effective dialogue between company and community.
This study demonstrates the difficulties of evaluating stakeholder salience within complex community networks. This in turn can hamper the quality of community participation in CCI and lead to tensions and even situations of conflict. The company was found to engage in CCI for sound instrumental reasons and with the long-term development of the community in mind, yet the contextual challenges of engagement due to competing interests and influence of community stakeholders meant community expectations were difficult to manage and engaging marginalised groups was often beyond company control. The wider implications of the findings for CCI and stakeholder theory and practice are discussed and recommendations for improving participation in CCI given.
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