Emerging Development Variables and Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: A Case of SIFAX Group of Company, Nigeria

  • Ismail Fatai Olawale
Keywords: Corporate, communication, social, sustainable and development

Abstract

Organizations use corporate social responsibility (CSR) to identify their roles in the society. While CSR has become a part of organization’s activities, CSR communication is underestimated. Theliterature on CSR communication is scattered around various disciplines with little or nothing from communication. Therefore, this study intends to gain insight into the role of CSR communication between organizations and their host communities. By connecting CSR with collective responsibility, this study aspires to show the interlinkages between sustainability, corporate responsibility, and participatory communication. All in the attempts to better understand the communicative perspectives on CSR through a case from a company with investment in maritime, aviation, oil and gas, haulage and logistics, finance and hospitality services in Nigeria. The Legitimacy Theory by Dowling and Pfeffer (1975) and the Legitimacy Gap Theory as explained bySethi (1975) underpin this study. The Legitimacy Theory is a derivation from the concept of organisational legitimacy. This is a pragmatic research in which multiple data collection instruments and analytical methods were applied. Data were collected through questionnaire, in-depth-interview and document observation methods. From a population of 960 employees, twenty-seven (27) were purposively sampled.Twenty-five (25) people responded to questionnaire, while two (2) of them granted in-depth-interviews. For data analysis, the simple descriptive statistics of percentage and frequency was used for the quantitative data; while the conceptual and relational content analysis approaches were applied for the qualitative data.Findings of the study justify that critical communication of CSRcan foster sustainability and trust through the dynamic interplay between dialogical interaction and social research. The proactive nature of development communication, including and connecting diverse actors in decision-making, are imperative for the production and reproduction contextualmeaning of CSR in order to produce CSR communication as a business investment. Moreover, communicating CSR as financial reports has no capacity to inform the public about crucial factors in the process of CSR forpromoting sustainable business environment. However, the current CSR communication channels employed by SIFAZ Group of Companies not the most optimal for the organization to critically reports its CSR; thus, new alternatives are needed to bridge the gaps in CSR communication in Nigeria.

Published
2021-10-06
How to Cite
Olawale, I. F. (2021). Emerging Development Variables and Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: A Case of SIFAX Group of Company, Nigeria. University of Nigeria Interdisciplinary Journal of Communication Studies , 27(1), 38-51. Retrieved from https://journal.ijcunn.com/index.php/IJC/article/view/162