Multi-National Corporations

Citation:

Kemp, Deanna, Julia Keenan, and Jane Gronow. 2010. “Strategic Resource or Ideal Source? Discourse, Organizational Change and CSR.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 23 (5): 578–94. doi:10.1108/09534811011071298.

Authors: Deanna Kemp, Julia Keenan, Jane Gronow

Abstract:

Purpose –

The purpose of this paper is to examine how discourse used as a strategic resource can facilitate change in gender and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy and practice in a global mining company.

Design/methodology/approach –

An existing model of discourse and organizational change was applied to illuminate the contours of a particular organizational change process. This paper draws on empirical data in the form of talk and text in oral and written form.

Findings –

The research highlights the challenge of finding the right balance between organizational receptivity and resistance, so that discursive boundaries around gender and CSR can be contested and challenged, but where new concepts and subjectivities are not rejected before they have an opportunity to generate shared meaning within the organization. Findings confirm that the involvement of a range of company personnel, particularly from the operational level, is important for generating knowledge and shared meaning, which can lead to enactment. This aligns with observations made in this journal that the management of meaning as opposed to management of change provides a useful analytical and practical focus.

Originality/value –

The paper analyses one of the first attempts by a global mining company to articulate a change agenda for gender and community relations within a CSR framework. Unique insights into the internal world of a global mining company and CSR change processes are provided. The paper utilizes a well-articulated model that facilitates a discursive analysis of organizational change to advance knowledge and understanding.

Keywords: organizational change, reasoning, Gender, mining industry, corporate social responsibility

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Multi-National Corporations

Year: 2010

Citation:

Ikelegbe, Augustine. 2005. “Engendering Civil Society: Oil, Women Groups and Resource Conflicts in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 43 (2): 241–70. doi:10.2307/3876206.

Author: Augustine Ikelegbe

Abstract:

Civil society has been an active mobilisational and agitational force in the resource conflicts of the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. The paper examines the gender segment of civil society and its character, forms and roles in these conflicts. The central argument is that marginality can be a basis of gendered movements and their engagement in struggles for justice, accommodation and fair access to benefits. Utilising secondary data and primary data elicited from oral interviews, the study identifies and categorises women groupings and identifies their roles and engagements in the oil economy. It finds that community women organisations (CWOs), with the support of numerous grass-roots women organisations, are the most active and frequently engaged in the local oil economies, where they have constructed and appropriated traditional women protests as an instrument of engagement. The paper notes the implications of women protest engagements and particularly their exasperation with previous engagements, the depth of their commitments, and the extension of the struggle beyond the threshold of normal social behaviour.

Annotation:

• Women constitute a large portion of subsistence farmers, fisherwomen and informal sector in Nigeria; marginalized in trickle down of benefits from MNCs (Shell has a female capacity building program), but women are not recognized as owners of land or water resources, underemployed by MNC, and excluded from compensation for acquisition, pollution and devastation of farmlands and fishing waters (242)
• Women led peaceful mass actions against oil companies; now, NGOs and MNCs are focusing on how women can help peace-building capacity in the region (242)
• Women’s organizations are primarily on the rise in the informal sector (market associations, cooperatives and informal credit) -- Mobilization, autonomy to challenge status quo, define own interests and set own agendas (245)
• Women’s groups preceded colonialism, were a part of traditional governance systems; Subordinated by colonial and post-colonial groupings and the addition of colonies of migrants, settlers, workers and artisans (249)
• Categories of women’s groups: local/traditional governance structures (MNC calls to action; leverage with community – threaten to relocate or protest naked; mutual support system); communities/clans; influence-seeking groups (250)
  • Socioeconomic, pan-ethnic and regional since the 1970s
  • National groups are few and mostly professional
• Economic downturn has led to more oil and gas exploration for rents and MNC profits, exacerbating pollution, poverty, hunger, unemployment, and anger.
• Brunt of oil economy: women are largely sedentary farmers and thus suffer most from land degradation and loss, driven from fishing by gas flaring, prostitution rings for oil workers, and men leave to work for oil companies (254)
• Women have threatened to seal off oil wells; Women and men together shut down Shell production facilities and protested land acquisition. (256)
• Limitations on female involvement (266-7):
  • Local demands for development, employment and empowerment are greater than national demands for control, derivation and restructuring
  • Women lack the resources for causes that are not cultural or communal although community women’s organizations derive their strength from being culturally-based
  • Women are traditionally the last resort, demonstrating that the local threshold has been reached

Quotes:

“How have women emerged to articulate gender-related issues and mobilize themselves? Through what means and structures are women mobilized to address perceived grievances in the oil economy? Do women have associational voices in the economy of oil at the community, ethnic, pan-ethnic, state and regional levels? What kinds of women civil and community groups exist and at what level? Are women grass-root community organizations making any impact on the oil economy? In particular, what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and potentials? Are there linkages, networks or organization frameworks within and beyond the community women groups?” (242)

Topics: Civil Society, Economies, Poverty, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Justice, Multi-National Corporations, NGOs, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Political Participation Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2005

Citation:

Golden, Rebecca Lynne. 2012. “Armed Resistance: Masculinities, Egbesu Spirits, and Violence in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.” PhD diss., Tulane University.

Author: Rebecca Lynne Golden

Annotation:

Summary:

This dissertation addresses the Ijaw/Ijo armed resistance movement for self-determination waged by young men against multinational oil companies and the Federal Government of Nigeria in the Niger Delta. I investigated the reciprocity of violence, the transgression of social order, and the search for legitimacy. The processes of defining Ijaw masculinities as responses to the everyday militarization and of this riverine, polluted environment and the increasing marginalization of Ijaw youth encompassed three dimensions of warriorhood, cosmology, and reciprocal, brutal disorder. This struggle was not one of disengagement but of diverse involvement, where a generation of men, were torn together by poverty, despair, and revolt. Complex notions of agency, (dis)connection, and belonging provide outlets for a youth-based political hierarchy that hurls young men over the gerontocracy and into the mainstream of Ijaw petrol politics. Armed with Egbesu (powerful Ijaw god of justice and war) warriors intensified their violent resistance, infused with renewed vigor from historical, ethno-spiritual identities. I demonstrated, through a progression of violent professionalization and a new democracy, that indigenous cosmology shaped and legitimized the struggle against the Nigerian Government; Egbesu orders daily lives in a world of disorder. The war god offers a counter-balance to tradition and modernity, and yet he is the manifestation of both. I revealed that the modern Ijaw warrior believes that well-organized, fighting organizations are capable of propelling the Delta out of her problems while socially promoting young men to senior status, as condoned by their elders. The new Ijaw warrior dreams of returning to his village or town as a hero to supplant older forms of rule, yet he is no longer in control of his lands and trading routes. Instead, oil lifting, pipeline sabotage, and burning cash have become the new order. The armed rebellion wove a web of betrayals and disillusionment. The contradictory reverberations of failures and successes of Ijaw warriors continues to anchor everyday meanings on historical transgressions, warrior obligations, and future aspirations for social inclusion, while sequestering the emergent Ijaw warrior in perpetual battle. He is the unseen additive in the Nigerian oil, on which the world depends.

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Democracy / Democratization, Economies, Environment, Extractive Industries, Gender, Boys, Masculinity/ies, Men, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Multi-National Corporations, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2012

Citation:

Gilberthorpe, Emma, and Glenn Banks. 2012. “Development on Whose Terms?: CSR Discourse and Social Realities in Papua New Guinea’s Extractive Industries Sector.” Resources Policy 37 (2): 185–93. 

Authors: Emma Gilberthorpe, Glenn Banks

Abstract:

The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the extractive industries represents a bid to legitimize the sector after decades of environmental disasters and the trampling of indigenous rights. But whilst the rise in CSR has meant safer technologies and better stakeholder engagement, there is little evidence of any real socio-economic development at the grassroots. This paper examines the uneasy relationship existing between the strategic ‘business model’ of CSR and the brand of development it delivers. Using evidence form the two multinational extractive industries in Papua New Guinea, we show how weaknesses in CSR practice come from greater emphasis on meeting global ‘performance standards” than on the specificities of the social contexts in which strategies are implemented. These weaknesses, we argue, lead to ill-conceived and inappropriate development programmes that generate inequality, fragmentation and social and economic insecurity. We conclude that greater engagement with affected communities will facilitate the development of more mutually beneficial and appropriate CSR strategies.

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Indigenous, Multi-National Corporations, Political Economies, Rights, Indigenous Rights Regions: Oceania Countries: Papua New Guinea

Year: 2012

Citation:

Hepburn, Stephanie, and Rita J. Simon. 2013. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AROUND THE WORLD: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT. New York: Columbia University Press.

Authors: Stephanie Hepburn, Rita J. Simon

Abstract:

An examination of human trafficking around the world including the following countries: United States, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Colombia, Iraq, Syria, Canada, Italy, France, Iran, India, Niger, China, South Africa, Australia, United Kingdom, Chile, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Russia, and Brazil. (WorldCat)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Work Visa Loopholes for Traffickers
1) United States
2) Japan
3) United Arab Emirates

Part II: Stateless Persons
4) Thailand
5) Israel & The Occupied Palestinian Territories

Part III: Unrest, displacement, and Who is in charge
6) Colombia
7) Iraq
8) Syria

Part IV: Conflation
9) Canada

Part V: Conflicting Agendas
10) Italy
11) France

Part VI: Gender Apartheid
12) Iran

Part VII: Social Hierarchy
13) India
14) Niger
15) China

Part VIII: Muti Murder
16) South Africa

Part IX: Hard-to-Prove Criterion and a slap on the wrist
17) Australia
18) United Kingdom
19) Chile
20) Germany

Part X: Transparent borders
21) Poland

Part XI: Fear Factor
22) Mexico

Part XII: Poverty and Economic Boom
23) Russia
24) Brazil

Conclusion

*Each Chapter follows the following format with some variations:

Introduction
As a destination
Internal trafficking
Trafficking abroad
What happens to victims after trafficking
What happens to traffickers
Internal efforts to decrease trafficking

Quotes:

"Devestation from a natural disaster...creates a sudden high demand for low-wage and largely unskilled labor. Disruption of the traditional labor supply leaves room for illicit contractors to move in, and new workers can be brought in unnoticed." (19)

"There continue to be more criminal convictions of sex traffickers than of forced-labor traffickers [However, this number of individuals victimized by forced labor may be increasing]." (32)

"Many experts state that the yakuza (organized crime) networks play a significant role in the smuggling and subsequent debt bondage of women--particularly women from China, Thailand, and Colombia--for forced prostitution in Japan. Determining the exact extent of yakuza involvement is difficult because of the covert nature of the sex industry. Consequently, the yakuza are able to minimize people's direct knowledge of their involvement...The yakuza networks work with organized crime groups from other nations, such as China, Russia, and Colombia." (49-50)

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Men, Girls, Boys, International Law, International Human Rights, Multi-National Corporations, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Labor Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, North America, South America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Niger, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, Poland, Russian Federation, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America

Year: 2013

Citation:

Martin, Joanne. 1990. “Deconstructing Organizational Taboos: The Suppression of Gender Conflict in Organizations.” Organization Science 1 (4): 339–59.

Author: Joanne Martin

Abstract:

This paper begins with a story told by a corporation president to illustrate what his organization was doing to "help" women employees balance the demands of work and home. The paper deconstructs and reconstructs this story text from a feminist perspective, examining what it says, what it does not say, and what it might have said. This analysis reveals how organizational efforts to "help women" have suppressed gender conflict and reified false dichotomies between public and private realms of endeavor, suggesting why it has proven so difficult to eradicate gender discrimination in organizations. Implications of a feminist perspective for organizational theory are discussed.

Topics: Economies, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Multi-National Corporations

Year: 1990