Essay Example on Corporate Social Responsibility in Oil and Gas Industry

In recent years, social license to operate has become common in many industries including mining, gas and oil industries. It enables numerous companies to work peacefully in any environment as long as they are given the necessary social license (Koivurova, Buanes, Riabova, Didyk, Ejdemo, Poelzer, Taavo, and Lesser, 2015). However, the social license is not entirely a legal requirement but an approval by the local society and shareholders, for the company to operate in that environment. This further raises the curiosity to determine if they are relevant to the gas and oil industry.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

According to Koivurova et al. (2015), social license to operate is a hypothetical construct that is associated with acceptance and approval by the local community. In fact, this further defines the social license theory, which specializes in understanding it and providing its history. As a matter of fact, this background looks at the way it provides its correlation to the gas and oil industry. In keeping with Vaaland and Heide (2008), social license to operate is not the only social norm that is present in the gas and oil industry. During the years, corporate social responsibility has been gaining ground and favor from different companies around the world (Smith and Richards, n.d.). However, with firms in the oil and gas industries it is becoming harder to distinguish the role of capitalism to CSR.

Nigeria is mainly associated with oil and gas, and the two goods contribute to nearly 95% of its exports (Musa, Yusuf, McArdle, and Banjoko, 2013). Furthermore, it contributes to 65% of its internal revenue. However, its gas and oil industry has resulted in many social problems such as kidnapping and crime. These problems were associated mainly with the governments act of holding the available land (Idemudia and Ite, 2006). Capitalism has enabled the gas and oil industry to grow.

CSR is more prominent in the Western worlds than in Africa due to the development of their economies. In line with Ekhator (2014), Addax is one of MNS companies operating in Nigeria that has a good CSR principle and conduct. Such companies are contributing to better CSR conducts in the Nigeria oil and industry.

References

Ekhator, E., 2014. Corporate Social Responsibility and Chinese Oil Multinationals in the Oil and Gas Industry of Nigeria: an appraisal. Cea, (28), pp.119-140.

Idemudia, U, & Ite, U., 2006. Corporatecommunity relations in Nigeria's oil industry: challenges and imperatives. Corp. Soc. Responsib. Environ. Mgmt, 13(4), pp.194-206.

Koivurova, T., Buanes, A., Riabova, L., Didyk, V., Ejdemo, T., Poelzer, G., Taavo, P. & Lesser, P., 2015. Social license to operate: a relevant term in Northern European mining? Polar Geography, 38(3), pp.194-227.

Musa, A., Yusuf, Y., McArdle, L. and Banjoko, G., 2013. Corporate social responsibility in Nigeria's oil and gas industry: the perspective of the industry. IJPMB, 3(2), p.101.

Smith, D., & Richards, J., n.d. Social License to operate: hydraulic fracturing-related challenges facing the oil & gas industry. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Vaaland, T., & Heide, M., 2008. Managing corporate social responsibility: lessons from the oil industry. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 13(2), pp.212-225.