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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1              BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Globally, awareness is growing among host communities with a call for companies to be truly committed to their social responsibility obligations. Default on the part of the companies have caused them huge losses on both human and material resources as well as their corporate image.

Today, emphasis is shifting from profitability to profit sustainability. It is a waste of energy and resources for a business venture to make profit only for such profit to be wasted as a result of societal ills such as armed-robbery, youth restiveness and militancy; or for such profit to be spent combating environmental crisis like pollution, flood, erosion and other environmental disasters occasioned by neglect. It does not sound logical for a business to stop operation in an area due to lack of adequate manpower, owing to poor education.

The global view is that business should not only consume the social capital available in the communities, but should also play important part in regenerating it. This has led to a new era of Corporate Citizenship in which Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) aspire to be social entrepreneurs and companies look for ways to combine profit and social responsibility (Eberly 2008:47).

Government and her agencies are becoming interested in the social responsibility activities of companies. This is not unconnected with the fact that social responsibility activity by companies has been identified as an important tool for achieving sustainable development (Eberly, 2008:49). To this end, government has developed strategies and programmes aimed at involving corporate organizations as development partners, through corporate social responsibility.

Beyond participation in social responsibility activities, the public, environmentalists and host communities are calling for a reported evidence of social responsibility activities by companies. It is believed that a fairly reported account of these social activities by companies, duly signed, audited and published for all to see, will help reduce environmental tension (Davies and Okorite, 2009:44). This will also paint a favourable public corporate image for the reporting entities, thereby scoring them high on the scorecard of socially responsible investment (SRI).

Accountability, delivered through a timely and reliable information system, is a major requirement for good corporate governance. Enthroning accountability with respect to corporate social responsibility, is the goal of 

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