Corporate Community Involvement Implementation: The Case of MNC Subsidiaries Operating in Burkina Faso and Mali

This thesis investigates the operationalisation of Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) practices within Multinational Corporations (MNCs) subsidiaries. This study particularly focuses on the influence of West African countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali settings on MNCs CCI engagement mechanisms when operating within host country context in their legitimacy building process. Four main theoretical domains are combined in this study: Corporate social responsibility (CSR/CCI) literature, International Business literature, Neo-institutional theory and legitimacy theory. A qualitative research methodology is used, focusing upon in-depth interviews with MNCs subsidiaries managers of the six subsidiaries and key institutional actors across both selected countries (Burkina Faso and Mali). Forty-seven in-depth interviews with the subsidiary’s managers responsible for CCI implementation and institutional key actors in host countries were collected and analysed using descriptive and interpretative coding to reach the findings. The findings showed that the perception of the conception of CCI within both selected countries tend to be problematic resulting from the ‘ambivalence’ nature of the description of the different groups of key institutional actors in host country. The findings also showed that CCI contribution towards community socio-economic development was found to be ineffective resulting from ‘unfit’ projects practices and a lack of structural investments of their CCI engagement mechanisms in Burkina Faso and Mali. The findings showed evidence of the limited capabilities of host countries local authorities and the dominant position of MNCs subsidiaries even at a decentralised level. In addition, the dynamic and complex nature of the collaboration between MNCs subsidiaries were found to be characterised by two crucial perspectives: frustrating when it involves subsidiaries and CSOs/NGOs and very good when the collaboration is between subsidiaries and the government. Thus, three key types of legitimisation processes were also emphasised on the findings by subsidiaries when faced with host country institutional pressures, using their CCI practices: anticipatory, appeasement and participatory. Therefore, focusing on these findings, this study recommends the need to conduct further studies on cross-sectorial investigation of CCI engagement mechanism for the entire ECOWAS (Economic Organisation for West African State) or WAEMU (West African Economic and Monetary Union). This could potentially contribute to generating important insights into Burkina Faso and Mali context that would be useful for organisations managers and public policy makers to better meet with different stakeholders’ demands and expectations in host countries.