CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORTING IN THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECTOR IN AFRICA

ABSTRACT

Corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR) has received huge attention in both academic and corporate settings, owing partly to the fact that it has been made mandatory in some jurisdictions and the idea that it has the potential of benefitting organizations in the long run. This thesis looked at how the biggest telecommunications companies in Africa report on their CSR via their corporate web sites. Drawing on inspirations from prior studies, this thesis looked at corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR) from five thematic perspectives in the areas of environment; human resources; product and customer; community and ethical aspect, using content analysis of web sites of 8 top biggest telecommunications companies operating in Africa. Findings of this thesis suggest that telecommunications companies in Africa are committed to CSR and CSRR. Based on the five themes, the community involvement category dominates on the web sites of these telecommunications companies, which supports earlier studies that most organizations are committed to corporate philanthropy. The findings also suggest that the telecommunications companies are committed to good corporate governance in the conduct of their business. Another intriguing finding from the study revealed that telecommunications companies in Africa are committed to issues of the environment, although there is no known as yet any negative impact of telecommunications masts on the environment. This study makes relevant contribution in the area of CSRR in the context of Africa, judging from the fact that the concept CSR and CSRR are relatively new in Africa and also adds literature to a fairly growing area of communicating CSR via corporate web sites which are fast becoming a medium of corporate communication for corporations in Africa and beyond.