CSR in the telecom industry of a developing country: employees' perspective

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>The study examines employee perceptions of CSR relating to stakeholders in the telecommunication industry of Ghana. It also analyses the variations in CSR practices among the sampled telecommunication firms.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>By means of a survey, the study explored from the perspective of employees the CSR practices of their firms highlighting the stakeholder group they perceive their firms to be focussing on. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from employees working with leading telecommunication firms in Ghana. A total of 177 valid responses were used for the study analysis. Data was analysed by means of descriptive statistics, and differences in respondent views across the different firms were ascertained using analysis of variance test (ANOVA).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>The study results demonstrate that although telecommunication firms engage in CSR activities in some respect, generally these activities are directed more at the stakeholder group “society” distantly followed by shareholder group. The authors also find from their target respondents that not so much attention is given to issues relating to the stakeholder group “the environment”. The results also suggest variations exist in the direction of CSR practices by these firms.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>Managers of telecommunication firms in Ghana seem to balance the interest of stakeholders by focussing on society rather than prioritizing these stakeholders.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>This study contributes to CSR studies highlighting the perception of employees on their companies' CSR practices while comparing practices amongst telecommunications firms. This would help management of these firms to map out strategies to direct their CSR activities based on stakeholder prioritization.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Institutional complexity and CSR practices: evidence from a developing country

“…The majority of CSER studies have been conducted in the context of developed and stable countries such as Western Europe, USA and Australia (e.g., Day and Woodward, 2009; Groves et al , 2011; Cho et al , 2014), and fewer studies are available on CSER practices in developing countries (e.g., Belal, 2001; Azizul Islam and Deegan, 2008; Khan et al , 2013; Welbeck et al , 2020). Yet, most of these latter studies are carried out in the context of newly industrialised countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, and very few studies are conducted in African countries such as South Africa, Libya and Egypt (e.g., Rossouw et al , 2002; Amaeshi et al , 2006; Alshbili and Elamer, 2019).…”

Determinants of corporate environmental disclosures in Sri Lanka: the role of corporate governance

“…There is a dearth of extant empirical research from developing countries, pertaining to environmental and social accounting and disclosure in general (Adhariani and du Toit, 2020;Belal, 2001;Belal and Cooper, 2011;Diab and Metwally, 2020;Gerged et al, 2020a;Welbeck et al, 2020). For instance, most extant disclosure studies are focused upon developed countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe (See Robert, 1991;Gray et al, 1995;Deegan and Gordon,1996;Deegan et al, 2002;Campbell, 2004;Cowan and Gadenne, 2005;Rao et al, 2012;Burgwal and Vieira, 2014;Yu and Zhao, 2015;Albitar et al, 2020) and upon emerging economies such as Malaysia, Hong Kong and China (e.g., Gao et al, 2005;Smith et al, 2007;Qu et al, 2013).…”

The impact of ownership structure on corporate social responsibility: the moderating role of financial performance

“…Prior studies have examined the impact of firm‐specific characteristics (D’Amato and Falivena, 2020; Welbeck et al , 2020), board structure (Alabdullah et al , 2019; Kachouri et al , 2020; Shahbaz et al , 2020) and audit committee attributes (Kolsi et al , 2021; Appuhami and Tashakor, 2017; Qaderi et al , 2020; Agyei-Mensah, 2019) on companies’ decisions about CSR activities. However, the extent to which the ownership structure explains the firm’s social engagement is still little explored (Chen et al , 2019; Oh et al , 2011; Zaid et al , 2020; RL, 2021; Ye and Li, 2021).…”