Social responsibility and strategies for internationalisation: The Angolan Case

A recent polling excercise among Norwegian consumers found that only 21% stated profit as the main objective of business activities. Corresponding results are found in other countries where consumers emphasise that the firm's social responsibility is important for its business reputation. In consumer-oriented industries such as the oil industry, self-interest is the firm's main motive for social responsibility. Norwegian oil companies are poised to spend three billion dollars on offshore oil exploration in Angola during the next decade. The companies will certainly be challenged by the consumers and other groups on how these investments are undertaken (as Elf already has been in Angola). Increasingly, consumers claim that the social responsibility of firms is an essential factor for the creation of an equitable and sustainable paradigm of development. The debate on the social responsibility of the firm, however, lacks operational criteria or indicators of what to classify as social responsibility. Furthermore, very few attempts have been undertaken to analyse how different types of social responsibility are perceived by different stakeholders in the recipient country. An economic impact analysis of firm's social responsibility not only for the firm, but also for the recipient country has hardly been undertaken. This study will address these questions through a case study of the oil industry in Angola. The project will link up to previous fieldwork of the oil industry in Angola and to a forthcoming Opinion and knowledge survey on the role of oil companies for development in Angola. The study will also try to analyse whether the diamond firms and the oil firms behave differently regarding their social responsibility.