Relación abogado-cliente

This chapter has explored the CSR practices of eight hotel and lodge companies in Livingstone. Findings reported in this chapter show that three (SIL, PHL & TLL) of the eight companies that took part in this doctoral research are evidently changing their CSR practices towards those which offer long-term benefits for more people in Mukuni communities. However, simple donations are still a common feature among most hotel and lodge companies in Livingstone. In contrast, despite possessing potential for widespread community benefits and long-term “empowering” impacts, local procurement and small community business development initiatives are still not yet popular types of CSR among hotel and lodge companies in the area. For example, local purchases of vegetables and fruit from communities are still low even for the two companies (SIL and PHL) that are more involved in applying this approach. However,

154

in spite of their small purchases, SIL and PHL are helping to stimulate incremental community benefits through their weekly purchases of vegetables and fruit locally from Mukuni farmers and through providing support to related small community business development initiatives for some community groups. The key summary points and implications of these findings are discussed below.

First, although three of the eight companies have shown a clear indication of advancing their CSR practices, overall, the findings reveal that tokenistic CSR initiatives and approaches still dominate. ‘Tokenistic’ initiatives are those initiatives that are superficial in nature/‘ticking the box’ types of initiatives that might be good for a company’s image but that are not comprehensive enough to make a real difference in poor communities. According to literature, tokenistic initiatives may show the company’s commitment to CSR; however, they do not represent an approach that will benefit the community in the long-term, instead resembling a public relations act (Jenkins & Obara, 2008, p. 17). Fox (2004, p. 34) confirms that “a development- oriented agenda represents a challenge to those companies who adopt CSR practices on a tokenistic basis, as it is often the core business activities such as purchasing that have the greatest impacts, both positive and negative, on development outcomes”. In addition, practices that deny communities the opportunity to contribute to the decision- making process of projects reflect elements of tokenism (Manteaw, 2008, pp. 439-440; Tang-Lee, 2016, pp. 28-33), that tend to undermine the long-term transformative aspects of CSR (Habisch & Moon, 2006).

In further development discourse, it has been argued that tokenistic practices are often characterized by a donor-recipient relationship and low levels of corporate-community interaction (Austin, 2000, p. 35). This being the case, these tokenistic practices reported among hotel and lodge companies in the study area are an indication of low levels of interaction among stakeholders (companies, communities, government and others) in CSR, and a sign of the dominance of corporate power in CSR decision-making practices and processes. This corporate dominance was fervently reported in the responses from government and community participants who described companies in the tourism industry as lacking transparency, or being too secretive about their CSR practices (see more in Chapter Six). According to the theoretical perspective of this study (see Section 2.9 in Chapter Two), this finding implies that hotel and lodge companies in Livingstone have not yet widely adapted their CSR practices to ensure greater equity.

155

Second, the findings reported in this chapter show that although economic reasons are the dominant factors that motivate companies to engage in CSR with Mukuni communities, hotels and lodges in Livingstone are also willing to adapt more. From managers’ responses, incentives by Government, working with other stakeholders in CSR, and developing a jointly derived tourism code of ethics for an industry-based CSR regulatory system, could be important options to use to direct more benefits to people in Mukuni communities. This implies that the role of Government and other stakeholders in CSR practices and processes is slowly becoming an acceptable norm among hotel and lodge companies in Livingstone. The support for jointly-derived tourism codes of ethics for CSR could break new grounds in Zambia’s tourism industry. As Dodds and Joppe (2005, p. 36) have also observed, “CSR could help with a number of issues facing tourism with regard to promoting sustainable tourism practices” and have stressed the need for government involvement and support for CSR if the companies in tourism are to increase their own involvement in CSR. Moreover, their extensive elaboration and recommendations on different tourism codes of ethics can provide invaluable insights in this regard.

Third, in terms of creating opportunities and delivering benefits to communities, this study has demonstrated from the findings reported in this chapter that CSR initiatives that satisfy the interests of both the businesses and communities have a higher rate of success and sustainability than those that do not. Findings in this chapter further suggest that CSR initiatives that are undertaken through community cooperatives, in which Government and other stakeholders are also involved, have minimal problems with traditional power and cultural influences in their practices and processes (this issue is explored further in Chapter Six). These two findings have important implications for the promotion of CSR in the study area. The first implication is that commercial interests of the companies should be recognised by decision makers and practitioners in government to be of equal importance as the interests/needs of communities in the promotion of CSR. This proposition supports the statement by Ashley and Haysom (2006, p. 278) that if “…approaches that recognise the commercial driver of corporate behaviour, but require companies to pursue their business objectives while simultaneously exploring how this can be achieved in ways that open up opportunities for the poor, ….can be adopted across the whole tourism industry, the potential for improving economic opportunities for the poor would be significant”. The second implication is that the role

156

of Government and other stakeholders is critical if the negative effects of power relations in CSR practices and processes are to be minimised.

Fourth, findings indicate the presence of traditional power and cultural influences in CSR at community level. The evidence for this is that almost all the managers from the eight hotels and lodges in Livingstone identified traditional power and cultural influences as serious causes of failure of some of their CSR initiatives that they have attempted to implement in Mukuni. Encouraging explicit roles of the Ministry of Tourism or core-tourism NGOs in CSR could assist to resolve these issues. If these issues remain unresolved, they might continue to seriously undermine the effectiveness of CSR, particularly, the equitable distribution of opportunities and benefits to more people in the communities. Some of the hotel and lodge companies cited these issues as the reason why they no longer prefer to carry out their CSR through the MCDT (see more details in Chapter Six). The affected companies registered frustration arising from the consistent failure of CSR initiatives, which has, in turn, lowered their interests to do more to contribute to community development in the area.

As indicated in Chapter One, this study set out to explore the significance of power relations in determining the effectiveness of CSR as a vehicle for community development. In the light of the findings above, it is clear that the theoretical framework of this study (see Section 2.9 in Chapter 2) is helpful in understanding the significance of power relations in determining the effectiveness of CSR as a vehicle for community development in Mukuni communities. Therefore, further and widespread change in CSR practices is needed among hotel and lodge companies in Livingstone. This change is needed to improve relationships (to ensure greater equity) and to foster direct benefits and long-term CSR impacts on community development in the study area.

Based on the findings of this chapter, two assumptions have been drawn. The first assumption is that there seem to be weaknesses in community structures and approaches used by hotel and lodge companies to implement their CSR in Mukuni. These issues are at the core of the discussion in Chapter Six. The second assumption is that there appear to be weaknesses also in the national tourism policy framework in terms of providing opportunities for establishing a strong connection between CSR and community development. In addition, the district development framework that is expected to act as

157

a forum for managing relationships in CSR among different stakeholders at local level also seems to be weak. These two later issues are the main focus of Chapter Seven.

159

CHAPTER SIX

6 Seeking out Community Voices in CSR

6.1

Introduction

Chapter Five explored empirical data around the first component of the theoretical framework:the CSR practices of companies. This second findings chapter is structured around the second component of the theoretical framework: community voices in CSR. This focus builds on insights from Muthuri’s statement below:

“…Companies must be clear about their own and stakeholders’ rationale for participation and be able to facilitate the creation of appropriate participatory structures and processes that contribute to a sustainable decision making process and, thereby, to sustainable communities. This requirement demands that corporations enact community participatory processes that do not further corporate domination in the governing of community development but encourage the creation of institutional arrangements or infrastructure where actors can collectively set goals, strategies, and principles for local governance and development processes….” (Muthuri et al., 2012, p. 372).

This statement encourages the need to ensure community voices are incorporated in local community development structures and processes that seek to sustainably develop poor communities. This is why it is important to establish whether and how community voices are incorporated in CSR. Thus, this chapter presents a critical step in understanding the prospects of CSR as a vehicle for achieving long-term improvements in the lives of the majority people in Mukuni.

The chapter first examines community engagement mechanisms to find out whether Mukuni communities are given opportunities to negotiate their most important community interests in CSR. This is done to establish understanding of specific approaches used by companies to seek out the voices of communities in CSR initiatives. The second section examines the community structures used to undertake CSR at the community level in respect of majority participation, governance and accountability in the processes and benefits from CSR.

160

Three ideas on genuine community engagement have been identified from literature and used to examine community structures and approaches. These ideas are about whether structures and approaches are able to: (i) encourage deeper relationship-building (Rein & Stott, 2009, p. 82) in CSR between communities and companies, (ii) ensure broad- based and equity-enhancing (Scheyvens & Momsen, 2008, p. 32) CSR practices and (iii) offer significant control and ownership of CSR initiatives by the communities (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996; Liu, 1994). These ideas have been used to compare the effectiveness of three community structures in Mukuni communities considered in this study in terms of providing equitable opportunities for voices in and benefits from CSR. The research interest here is to establish the extent to which each structure has established mechanisms for seeking out the voices of the communities in CSR and able to respond to the concerns and needs of the majority. Subsequently, issues that could potentially constrain the voices of the communities in CSR are outlined.