Abstract:
ABSTRACT
The main aim of the study was to assess the Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) practices engaged in the oil and gas industry in Ghana. The study
employed the embedded mixed methods research approach in achieving the
outcome of the study. Using the quota sampling technique, 14 companies
comprising 7 exploration and production, and 7 service providers were used
for the quantitative aspect. The purposive sampling method was used to select
four oil and gas located communities in the Western Region of Ghana for the
qualitative aspect. Questionnaire and interview guide were used for the
quantitative and qualitative data collections, respectively. For the quantitative
aspect, mean, standard deviation, Mann Whitney U-test were used, whereas
thematic analysis was used for the qualitative analysis. Findings of the study
revealed that economic responsibility was the highest, whereas, philanthropic
was the least among the four dimensions of CSR executed by the oil and gas
companies. There were statistically significant differences in the CSR
practices between the Exploration and Production sector and the Service sector
in terms of legal responsibilities and philanthropic responsibilities. Regarding
community responsiveness, three main themes emerged from the study:
community engagement, community expectations, and community
satisfaction. It was concluded that community responsiveness among oil and
gas-located communities was relatively low, communities expected more
engagements and dialogue from the companies. It is recommended that
companies in the upstream oil and gas sector must ensure community
engagement before rolling out CSR programmes as it increases the community
responsiveness in the industry
