Between responsibility and rhetoric: some consequences of CSR practice in Nigeria's oil province

This article brings together some of the findings of a three-year study of the community dimensions of upstream petroleum operations in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil exporter. It examines the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of transnational petroleum-producing companies, focusing on the immediate and long-term ethnographic and social consequences of such practices on the local communities where oil extraction takes place. The article examines, more importantly, how such practices and the identified consequences intersect with the regulatory/institutional framework governing upstream petroleum operations in Nigeria. By shifting attention away from the dominant, ethnic view of conflict and instability in the country of study, and looking at specific instances of ethnographic and social crisis associated with corporate social responsibility, the article offers some insights into some present-day challenges to sustainable development in Africa, and unveils an important present-day mechanism through which the image of resource-rich African countries as strife-torn is entrenched.     

Unveiling the Endogenous Relationship Between Technical Efficiency and Value Creation in Mergers and Acquisitions in Nigeria

There is a growing literature on how the beneficial impacts of horizontal mergers and acquisitions (M&A) should be measured. Thus far, however, there have been few studies addressing endogeneity between technical efficiency and value creation: they tend to present a bidirectional and simultaneous relationship. This research contributes to the debate by investigating the impact of voluntary horizontal M&A on these metrics in Nigeria between 1995 and 2012, in light of the individual performance of bidders, targets, and the resulting corporate companies. First, technical efficiency, technology gap ratio, and returns-to-scale estimates were computed based on a meta-frontier DEA approach, together with a set of contextual variables that encompass performance indicators which reflect the value creation process. Then, robust regressions were used to discriminate these efficiency estimates in terms of such business-related variables, correcting for endogeneity and controlling for industry and trend effects. The results reveal that these contextual variables significantly impact virtual efficiency and returns-to-scale levels, and that there is a trade-off between efficiency and value creation at some point in the merging process. Managerial implications are derived.     

Coping with climate change in Africa: an analysis of local interpretations in Eastern Cape,SA

The emissions of greenhouse gases together with other anthropogenic activities has caused a change in global climatic conditions with corresponding negative effects on agricultural productivity, biodiversity and other socio-economic indices. Studies reveal that the impacts of climate change are felt most severely by the vulnerable, who have fewer adaptive capacities. In Africa, for example, little is known about local narratives on the ‘causes’ of climate change, and how such narratives influence climate change coping and adaptation strategies in specific local settings. Where do the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ intersect in the search for effective coping measures – and do they? Using a qualitative approach, this paper reveals how local conceptions of climate change appear to be rooted in ‘politics’ and spiritual forces. The paper highlights not only the major points of divergence between local interpretations and ‘Western’ conceptions about climate change, but also important areas of convergence between the two ideational domains.