Antecedents to transformational community engagement in South Africa

Abstract

Firms face increasing societal pressures to act responsibly towards stakeholders, and community engagement is a key element of this response. While Bowen, Newenham-Kahindi and Herremans (2010) have found that community engagement strategies fall into the transactional, transitional and transformational categories, more research is needed. Nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with CSR practitioners, community beneficiaries and external experts across three companies from different sectors and geographically-associated South African communities.Barriers to and enablers of transformational community engagement are identified and compared with points made in the literature. Prominent barriers identified include community expectation; the internal capacity of the company to engage properly with communities; and, according to a new finding in the literature, community educational levels. The most prominent enabler of engagement was relationshipbuilding. Companies with dedicated CSR practitioners are able to engage more in the community. Regulatory dynamics are found to largely determine the differences across sectors. But there is the risk that engagement is symbolic rather than substantive. Eleven higher-order antecedents to transformational community engagement are then identified. A newly developed firm-oriented decision-making model is proposed for moderating these antecedents. The findings in the community and national context provide granular insight into an African operating environment.

moderating and mediating role of local government in the community engagement strategy of a renewable energy company in South Africa

“…Research on corporate engagement strategies continues to provide new insights on the confluence of business and society (Delannon et al 2018;Bowen et al 2010;Stirling et al 2016). Corporate engagement can lie anywhere on the continuum of community engagement of 'transactional', 'transitional' and 'transformative' (Bowen et al 2010), and empirical research has found that these corporate engagement strategies can vary from being 'passive', such as simply giving donations (Lorenz et al 2013), to being applied in a complementary approach -an 'integrational' strategy', consisting of elements of all three strategies (Delannon et al 2018, 719).…”

“…The relationship between business and its mosaic of stakeholders continues to occupy researchers' attention as they grapple to better understand the underlying factors that arbitrate these relationships. Dedicated engagement by companies with community stakeholders holds the promise to contribute to the well-being of communities, especially in countries with urgent development priorities (Stirling et al 2016). An effective corporate community engagement strategy has the propensity to build close relationships between companies and their communities (Liu et al 2013) and to generate civic wealth (Lumpkin and Bacq 2019), yet the benefits are not clearly understood which suggests further inquiry in this regard is necessary.…”

About accountants and translators: reshaping community engagement in South African psychology

“…It is true that ‘companies are increasingly aware that they are no longer accountable to shareholders alone’ (Stirling et al, 2016, p. 516) and a great deal of interesting work is being done in developing ways of working with a wider range of stakeholders than only those who have a direct financial stake in the company. Community engagement broadens the purpose of corporations not only in terms of serving a more diverse group of stakeholders but also in terms of expanding the time horizon – there is now less focus on short-term profit and more on the long-term impact that companies have in society (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2010).…”

“…As is the case with all academic and professional fashions, there is always, in the words of Stirling, Wilson-Prangley, Hamilton, and Olivier (2016), ‘the risk that engagement is symbolic rather than substantive’ (p. 514). Our hope is that by mapping the past, present, and future landscape within which community engagement flourishes, we will be able to highlight ways in which superficial, routinised engagement with communities can be avoided and meaningful, transformative cooperation fostered.…”

“…By its very nature, community engagement is an attempt to move beyond one-directional charitable giving, with the ‘depth’ of a particular initiative often evaluated in terms of a three-way classification of transactional, transitional, and transformational community engagement (Bowen, Newenham-Kahindi, & Herremans, 2010). Transactional community engagement is traditional philanthropy, whereas transformational community engagement (which is usually seen as more desirable) involves ‘developing partnerships and supportive leadership roles for communities, allowing the attainment of outcomes that may never have been reached before’ (Stirling et al, 2016, p. 514). Transitional community engagement lies somewhere between these two poles.…”