Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Stakeholder Engagement: An Assessment of Promasidor Ghana Limited (PGL) CSR Programme

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a major business strategy for global firms and many local organizations as a means of strengthening ties with government, employees, NGOs, and communities that they operate in. This has increased its popularity in the 21st century in both business and academic settings. In response to this, interest has heightened on how firms define and engage their stakeholders in the implementation of CSR activities. This study sought to examine the extent to which Promasidor Ghana Limited (PGL), a Food and Beverage Company located in Greater Accra region of Ghana engages with its stakeholders in the planning and implementation of its CSR activities. The study was carried out within the framework of the stakeholder theory and Carroll’s CSR pyramid. The study critically examined the methodologies and the primary data collection strategies adopted by previous researchers to the study of CSR and proposed a mixed method approach with larger samples for this research. The study found out from the review of previous findings on CSR that employees (internal stakeholders) valued community participation as a prerequisite for implementing and sustaining Corporate Social Responsibility programs. Further, employees’ participation in policy decision relating to Corporate Social Responsibility was only limited to management, senior staffs and long serving employees within the junior staff and operational staff categories. Based on the analysis of previous findings, the results of this study would have revealed that Promasidor Ghana Limited (PGL) does not embrace the concept of stakeholder engagement in the planning and implementation of its CSR activities in the beverage industry. Due to the advent of corona virus (COVID-19) which affected the collection of primary data, the study recommended that future studies on CSR should focus on the food and beverage industry in Ghana with the adoption of mixed methodology approach with a larger sample size should be conducted to determine the level of involvement of stakeholders in the planning and implementation of CSR activities.