Study On The Motivation For Effective Implementation Of Corporate Social Responsibility In The Mining Firms Of DRC

Issues related to corporate social responsibility(CSR)have been the subject of growing debate across an increasingly wide range of disciplines in social sciences and business and management studies.Nowadays,CSR becomes a top priority with the support of governments and investors.It is generally accepted that firms are doing much more than ever before to avoid ethical compromises by their social responsibility,and implementing high transparency in governance.Therefore,firms become more responsible to their stakeholders.Nowadays,firms' objectives have evolved,traditionally,maximizing profit was the major concern in business and considered as the ultimate goal,however,managers in this era are carefully paying attention to several alternative goals such as long-term profit rather than a short-term goal,the brand or respect for the environment.Thus,this research sought to identify the motivations that drive firms to integrate Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR)in the mining firms of the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC).In this regard,a deep review was carried on the related theories and literature in line with this subject.Based on the analysis of the multi-level frameworks identified in the literature,this study allowed the research to establish a three-level conceptual framework aligned with the main objectives of the study,whereby,in the first level of the framework addresses the first objective by explaining the individual characteristics of managers as motivations behind companies' commitments to CSR.The second level explains the internal factors for CSR implementation which is the second objective,lastly the third objective and third level illustrates the external motivations that push firm to comply with labor regulations.In order to fulfill the objectives of this research,a mix approach technique was used,by reaching out to 200 mining firms,whereby 103 firms were successfully participative in this research.Hence the first empirical study is based on a logistic regression which revealed that the idealistic values and age of managers have a positive influence on their commitment to CSR.In the second empirical study,a multiple regression model was used in order to determine the externally driven motivations to CSR compliance,the researcher observed that four variables(legislation,competitive advantage,customer expectation and international trade)have significant impacts on CSR compliance,whereas the practices of parent company appeared insignificant.Third empirical study,structural equation modeling(SEM)allowed the research to explain the internally driven motivation in CSR implementation.However,the identified motivations appeared to be correlated with CSR implementation.Through constructing a structural model,cost reduction is found to have a positive impact on CSR implementation,while managers' perception of the well-being of employees as a motivation for the implementation of CSR is fostered by compliance with labor standards in the mining sector.Therefore,including CSR compliance as a mediating variable was necessary.Lastly,lack of resource shows a negative influence on CSR implementation.The innovations of this research including:(1)This dissertation sets out avenues to overcome an obvious theoretical lack of CSR in the context of mining sector and sets a path future research.And it also reveals the role of managers in CSR practices in the Congolese mining sector and recommends ways of improvement as to the adoption of a proactive CSR approach for both managers of Congolese mining firms and Congolese institutions dedicated to the promotion of CSR.(2)This research collates,calibrates,tests and measures a collection of mining sector antecedents related to the Corporate Social Responsibility that have the tendency to effectively influence the implementation of CSR in the mining sector.Moreover,this research responds to the deficient of novelty from the previous studies that were written earlier on the drivers for implementing CSR in the mining sector,this research attempts to explain the impact of each factor based on the models that are validated with statistical work,whereas the rest of the related studies in sub-Saharan regions,such as in the Congo mining sector,did not consider statistical tools and were limited by personal judgments.(3)The research considers factors that are rarely studied such as the customers' expectations,parent company practices.This thesis gives access to a sector of investigation very rarely studied and lays a cornerstone,as the basis of future research in this field.