“Getting it right”: when and how extractive firms improve their human rights behaviour

Thesis

In the aftermath of corporate scandals in the 1990s, including oil spills and violence against anti-mining protestors, various multi-stakeholder initiatives emerged to address corporate abuse within the extractive sectors worldwide. While some view these global human rights norms as significant progress, others raise concerns about firms adopting them superficially to enhance their image without genuinely transforming their human rights practices. But what about the rare case where a firm takes deliberate steps to improve its human rights behaviour? What conditions would prompt such shifts and how are they implemented?

Using Ghana as a country of study, I adopt a grounded mixed-method approach to investigate when and how extractive firms improve their human rights behaviour. By combining data from an originally constructed database with interviews, I uncovered patterns of corporate abuse within Ghana's extractive sectors and explored the corresponding remedies employed. I then closely examine the critical case of an extractive firm attempting to improve its past human rights records. My findings highlight an economic crisis that threatened the firm's survival as a pivotal catalyst (when) in prompting the human rights reforms. During the firm’s restructuring, internal change agents introduced (1) human rights awareness raising, (2) administrative and procedural changes, (3) personnel changes, and (4) changes to community engagement and development practices (how). Despite these improvements, perspectives from affected community members reveals unresolved tensions, with some demanding more substantial initiatives to promote the enjoyment of their economic, social, cultural, and solidarity rights.

This thesis makes important theoretical, empirical, and analytical contributions to the sociological literature on business and human rights. Firstly, it offers a grounded theory on extractive firms’ transition from abusing to respecting human rights. Empirically, it shows the possibilities and limits of becoming a more human rights-oriented extractive firm. Analytically, it explains why substantive changes to extractive firms' human rights practices remain the exception rather than the norm.

Authors: Kwakyewah, C

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-nbqognvky
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: corporate social responsibility; extractive industries; means-end decoupling; grounded theory; African ontology; organisational learning; analytical sociology; Akan conception of human rights; human rights
• Subjects: Social responsibility of business; Organizational sociology--Research; Africa; Sociology; Mineral industries; Human rights