Corporate Social Responsibility of EXXON-Mobil in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria and Community-Industry Relations: A Sociological Jurisprudence Prism.

Abstract

This study examined Corporate Social Responsibility and Community-Industry relations from both a
sociological jurisprudence prism using selected communities in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Six null
hypotheses were formulated based on the identified independent variable being Corporate Social
Responsibility that formed the foundation of the study to wit: (1) there is no significant relationship
between promoting participatory development intervention and community-industry relations; (2)
promotion of social investment in healthcare delivery does not significantly relate to community-industry
relations; (3) local community economic empowerment is not significantly related to community-industry
relations; (4) promotion of social investment in education does not significantly relate to communityindustry relations; (5) development of physical infrastructure of electrification, potable water supply,
and road construction is not significantly related to community-industry relations; and (6) factors in
corporate social responsibility do not significantly predict community-industry relations; and the
dependent variable of Community-Industry Relations. To generate data for testing the hypotheses, a 41-
item questionnaire captioned ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Community-Industry Relations
Questionnaire (C.S.R.C.I.R.Q.) was developed by the researcher. Survey research design was adopted
while data was collected from 720 randomly selected inhabitants of the host communities. Purposive and
systematic sampling procedures were variously applied at appropriate stages of the study. The generated
data were statistically tested using Contingency Chi-square (x2
), Factor Analysis, and Multiple
Regression statistical techniques. The test statistics and result revealed that a significant relationship
exists between factors in corporate social responsibility such as participatory community development,
promotion of social investment in healthcare, community economic empowerment, social investment in
education, social investment in physical infrastructure, and community-industry relations and that
factors in corporate social responsibility indeed predict community industry relations. It was
recommended among others that oil companies should key into the emerging consensus that business
entities can best contribute to better host community relations by focusing more on the participatory
development intervention strategy given its inherent strengths, while simultaneously reducing negative
impacts of exploration activities on the environment, and by extension the development of the host
community. It was also recommended that the legislature should build mechanisms for the enforcement
of these corporate social responsibilities via urgent legislative action.
Keywords: community-industry relations, corporate social responsibility, environment, oil industry,
participatory development intervention.