Abstract
This article examines the conceptualisation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of mining multinationals (MNCs) in Argentina. It explores the suitability of CSR for addressing social, environmental and economic issues associated with mining in the country. The study is based on interviews with four stakeholder groups in the country: government, civil society, international financial organisations, and mining industry. These are analysed using content and interpretative techniques and supplemented by the content analysis of secondary data from headquarters of mining MNCs. Using the concept of corporate social responsibility orientation (CSRO), the study contrasts the perceptions of major stakeholders and examines adaptation of mining companies’ CSRO to local context. It reveals that the CSRO of mining managers in Argentina differs from CSRO developed by global headquarters; and in Argentina companies “negotiate” economic, environmental and legal dimensions of CSR with the government. Although companies “negotiate” philanthropic responsibilities with the communities, ethical responsibilities are defined by the headquarters and not negotiated locally. The analysis suggests that environmental duties are the critical element of CSR in the mining sector in Argentina. This study treats environment as a separate dimension of corporate responsibility defined as to do “what is safe for the environment”.
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Notes
Schwartz and Carroll (2003) gave a ‘sustainability make-over’ to the four-part categorisation of CSR by eliminating philanthropic responsibilities (which is subsumed by economic and ethical domains) and conceptually substituting the principle of emphasis for a principle of balance between the overlapping domains, as expressed by a Venn diagram. It indicates that none of the three CSR domains is more important or significant relative to the others. While there is no denying the utility of this new construct, particularly with regards to teaching and research (Schwartz and Carroll 2003), we argue that the underlying assumption that these three components are wholly in harmony with each other and should be always weighted equally is overly idealistic in developing countries, given the complex and multi-faceted nature of companies’ responsibilities in environments where institutional governance is required (Blowfield and Murray, 2008). Indeed, Carroll and Shabana (2010) went back to Carroll’s original four-part definition of CSR.
Only three large-scale gold projects reached the stage of exploitation.
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The paper is based on data collected in the context of international collaboration between Cardiff University and the University of Buenos Aires. The authors would like to thank Professor Diana Mutti from the University of Buenos Aires for her input during the research for this paper.
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Yakovleva, N., Vazquez-Brust, D. Stakeholder Perspectives on CSR of Mining MNCs in Argentina. J Bus Ethics 106, 191–211 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0989-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0989-4