Corporate social responsibility patterns and conflicts in Nigeria’s oil-rich region

Corporate–community relations in the Niger Delta region are, almost without exception, framed in the context of conflict, borne out of dysfunctional or misguided corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and practices by oil transnationals. Based on a comparative study of the CSR policies and practices of Shell, Total and Agip in six oil-bearing communities in Rivers State, a core oil-bearing state in the Niger Delta, this paper contests this orthodoxy, pointing out significant variations in the intensity and scale of conflicts between host communities and different oil transnational corportions TNCs) in the region. The key question explored in the study is: to what extent is the variation in CSR policy and practices implicated in variation in the intensity and scale of conflicts between host communities and oil TNCs in the Niger Delta? We conclude that the intensity and scale of conflict in corporate–community relations in the Niger Delta region are a function of the CSR pattern of the operating oil TNC. The implications of this for CSR policy and practice are explored.