citizens, community engagement, community groups, corporate philanthropy, social partnerships, social strategy, stakeholder engagement, systematic review,

No abstract

The last decade has witnessed a notable increase in the volume of publications on human resource management (HRM) in Africa, particularly in reputable management journals. Yet, within the broader context of the mainstream HRM debate, advances in research and theoretical sophistication have not quite kept pace with the actual practice of management. This is particularly notable when it comes to the progress that organizations in Africa have made in product innovation and service delivery, the creation and application of advanced technology, as well as in the adoption of progressive/innovative HRM practices. The six papers in this forum were drawn from an international conference on HRM in Africa held at Nottingham Business School in 2010. Taken together, they identify important new developments in theory and practice, and also open up avenues for further debate particularly in the areas of career development, knowledge appropriation, mergers and acquisitions, the role of HR professionals, the informal sector and the most effective ways to engage foreign investors.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) encounter relentless stakeholder pressures when operating across linguistic, cultural and institutional boundaries. Our aims are to examine whether and how acquisition of language resources may help MNEs to bridge these boundaries and reduce pressures on MNE legitimacy by improving their corporate social responsibility (CSR) outcomes. We propose an MNE model of language resource acquisition policy based on three language orientations: "language-as-problem," "language-as-resource" and "languageas-right." Using sociolinguistic tools -an "ecological" analysis of how language affects MNE-stakeholder relationships -and surveying 15 mining MNEs from Australia, Canada, China, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom operating in East Africa, our research found some MNEs employ regional lingua francas like Swahili and local leadership practices to build sustainable relationships with local stakeholders. These local stakeholders are members of communities of place (CofP), who steward the land their ancestors have inhabited for centuries, and their voices have grown as to how that land is used. As their voices have grown, MNEs should improve CSR outcomes with CofP through better communications. A well-designed language acquisition policy may improve such communication and so fend off threats to MNE legitimacy.

mining, multinational corporations, corporate social responsibility, local stakeholders, not-for-profit organizations, Barrick, Tanzania,