Corporate Social Responsibility Practices and Community Responsiveness in Ghana’s Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT The main aim of the study was to assess the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices engaged in the oil and gas industry in Ghana. The study employed the embedded mixed methods research approach in achieving the outcome of the study. Using the quota sampling technique, 14 companies comprising 7 exploration and production, and 7 service providers were used for the quantitative aspect. The purposive sampling method was used to select four oil and gas located communities in the Western Region of Ghana for the qualitative aspect. Questionnaire and interview guide were used for the quantitative and qualitative data collections, respectively. For the quantitative aspect, mean, standard deviation, Mann Whitney U-test were used, whereas thematic analysis was used for the qualitative analysis. Findings of the study revealed that economic responsibility was the highest, whereas, philanthropic was the least among the four dimensions of CSR executed by the oil and gas companies. There were statistically significant differences in the CSR practices between the Exploration and Production sector and the Service sector in terms of legal responsibilities and philanthropic responsibilities. Regarding community responsiveness, three main themes emerged from the study: community engagement, community expectations, and community satisfaction. It was concluded that community responsiveness among oil and gas-located communities was relatively low, communities expected more engagements and dialogue from the companies. It is recommended that companies in the upstream oil and gas sector must ensure community engagement before rolling out CSR programmes as it increases the community responsiveness in the industry