Introduction
Organizations today, whether private or public are expected to conduct their businesses in a legal, ethical and transparent manner, raking in the needed profit, while at the same time meeting the expectations of various stakeholders. This is where the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) comes into play. Issues of CSR continue to be in the front burner in many corporate board rooms of many business corporations. This view is endorsed by (Nielsen & Thomsen,
2007) when they opined that the need for transparency and accountability from organizations operating worldwide has pushed them to put CSR high on their agendas. CSR today remains an emerging concept in many developing economies (Muller & Kolk,
2008), of which Ghana is not an exception. According to a an international survey issued by the Price Water House Coopers in the early part of 2002, reveals that nearly 70% of global chief executives believed that addressing CSR was vital to their companies’ profitability (Simms,
2002). Notwithstanding the age-long debate about corporate social responsibility and the difficulty in arriving at a consensual definition of the concept, CSR is gaining currency in many business enterprises in Ghana today. Similarly, the Ghanaian government has proactively endorsed CSR friendly practices by firms operating in the country (Atuguba & Dowuona-Hammond,
2006). This is because organizations by their nature have responsibilities assigned to them by law, shareholders, stakeholders and society at large (Carrol,
1979). Undoubtedly, corporatism today looks beyond the bottom line, in an attempt to placate its stakeholders. CSR issues are now being factored into all aspects of business operations and explicit commitment to CSR is made in the vision statement, mission statement and value statement in many business enterprises in the world (Ofori & Hinson,
2007). It is increasingly becoming fashionable today for organization not only to be socially responsible, but, also endeavor to report same. This view is endorsed by (Epinosa and Porter,
2011), when they argue that matters of sustainability reporting are increasingly assuming a global trend heading towards a paradigm shift in the ways businesses and organizations whether public or private, profit-making or non-profit-making operate in society. Engaging in social responsibility and reporting such activities at a regular interval have been recognized as an essential device for organizations towards ensuring the long term continued existence and survival (Khan,
2010).
A review of the social disclosure literature suggests that reporting CSR issues have become a necessary facet of businesses to demonstrate companies’ commitment to the wellbeing of society (Khan,
2010). A number of earlier researches analyzing CSR information disclosure have touched on a wide range of fundamental issues (See for example: Mahmoud et al.,
2017; Boateng & Abdul-Hamid,
2017; Hinson et al.,
2010; Sulemana,
2016; Khan,
2010; Gao,
2011; Abugre,
2011; Khan et al.,
2009). It appears not coincidental that issues of sustainability reporting is also suffering definitional quagmire similar to that of CSR. Consequently, it has been referred to variously as corporate citizenship report; triple-bottom line (TBL) report; social and environmental accounting; annual social report; integrity report; sustainability development report among others. It is pertinent to add that there are various mediums through which businesses can communicate CSR messages. Reasons for dwelling on corporate websites as a disclosure medium is inspired by the assertion by Zeghal & Ahmed (
1990) that the use of annual reports alone do not adequately represent information disclosure of a firm or industry as they tend to target only investors and shareholders, which makes websites disclosure appropriate and relevant.
Additionally, the number of people using the internet continues to soar (Arnone et al.,
2011) making it an appropriate medium to disclose CSR information. The objective of this study therefore, is to look at how telecommunications companies in Ghana disclose their CSR on their corporate websites. This paper is structured into six parts: the first part dealt with the introduction; section two provides literature review; section three sheds light on the theoretical framework underpinning the study; research methodology follows in section four; while section five discussed findings of the study. The paper is wrapped up with conclusions and recommendations of the study.
Literature review
According to Smith (
2002: 42) CSR is the “integration of business operations and values whereby the interests of all stakeholders, including customer, employees, investors, and the environment are reflected in the organization’s policies and actions”. According to (Nielsen & Thomsen,
2007) the emergence of non-financial reporting or CSR reporting can be seen as an attempt to increase transparency with respect to corporate dealings concerning social and environmental issues. To accentuate this, a number of reporting guidelines have been developed to which corporations are expected to report on to bring about fairness, transparency and truthfulness (Rrynolds and Yuthas,
2008), such as global reporting initiatives (GRI), SA (Social Accountability, International Labor Standards) or the triple bottom line. The corporate social reporting literature has witnessed tremendous growth over the last three decades (Gray,
2001). However, notwithstanding the extensive research in the area of CSR reporting, there is no consensus on the exact definition of CSR reporting (Gray,
2000).
According to Abugre & Nyuur (
2015: 173) “Communicating CSR is a means of ensuring that these firms are in touch with their stakeholders to be responsible for their social and environmental impacts”. The increasing desire by companies to engage in CSR is largely attributed to the myriad of benefits that companies stand to gain when perceived by society as being social responsible (Du et al.,
2010). According to Rizk et al.,
2008: 306) corporate social responsibility reporting is “the process of communicating the social and environmental effects of organizations’ economic actions to particular interest groups within society and to society at large. As such, it involves extending the accountability of organizations (particularly) companies; beyond the traditional role of providing a financial account to the owners of capital, in particular to shareholders. Such an extension is predicated upon the assumption that companies do have wider responsibility than simply to make money for their shareholders”. Fonseca et al. (
2011) see sustainability reporting as the process of accessing and making periodic public disclosures relating to organization’s social, environment, economic, safety and health performance. Hinson et al., (
2010) discussed how banks in Ghana disclose their CSR on their websites. The study found that adb (agricultural development bank) which has won most CSR awards in Ghana had the poorest communication of CSR on its websites.
The study further revealed that unlisted banks communicated more of their CSR than listed banks, contrary to the finding of (Dineshwar,
2013) study which revealed that listed banks in Mauritius communicated more of their CSR activities than unlisted banks. Hinson (
2011a) discussed how banks split along CSR award-winning versus non CSR award-winning banks communicate their CSR online. The study concludes that banks with the most awards as far as CSR was concerned had the poorest CSR communication online. Sulemana (
2016) analyzed CSR reporting by telecommunications companies across Africa and found that telecommunications companies on the continent are committed to CSR and reporting same to placate their stakeholders. Khan et al.,
2009examined CSR disclosures by 20 commercial banks in Bangladesh. The study showed that commercial banks in Bangladesh report on a wide range of themes, with much emphasis on human resource disclosure, contrary to the findings of (Hinson et al.,
2010) study in Ghana which saw commercial banks putting much emphasis on corporate philanthropy. Gao (
2011) analyzed 81 listed companies’ CSRR in China and found that state owned enterprises (SOEs) have the higher propensity of addressing social issues than non-state owned enterprises. The study further suggests that industrial firms are more willing to address the interests of stakeholders than service firms. Abugre & Nyuur (
2015) conclude that Ghanaians companies are committed to CSR and rely on a wide range of channels to make their CSR contributions known to the public, however, the companies dwell so much on corporate philanthropy as evidence of their CSR engagements. Nielsen & Thomsen (
2007) analyzed CSR reporting by six Danish companies and conclude that their CSR reportage are very different with respect to topics on the one hand and dimensions and discourses expressed in terms of perspectives, stakeholder priorities, contextual information and ambition levels on the other hand. Khan (
2010) looked at the potential impact of corporate governance (CG) issues on CSR reporting among private commercial banks in Bangladesh and the results demonstrate that although voluntary, CSR reporting is rather modest, but, the various themes reported are impressive, with corporate philanthropy once again leading the pack.
Scholarship in the area of CSR reporting has largely been a European affair (see Birth et al.,
2008; Kotonen,
2009; Morsing et al.,
2008; Adams & McNicholas,
2007; Capriotti & Moreno,
2007). However, there is fairly a growing literature in the context of Ghana on CSR reporting. For example, (Hinson et al.,
2010; Hinson,
2011a; Hinson,
2011b) did look at CSR disclosures in the banking sector in four thematic areas: human resource; environment; product and customer; and community involvement. But, these studies did not look at issues of ethical disclosure, which borders on good corporate governance, which this study seeks to do, by incorporating issues of corporate governance into Hinson et al., (
2010) study, which is very critical in sustainability development. This is because the underlying theme of the meaning of the concept CSR is accountability and responsibility (Dineshwar,
2013). After all, it would be of no use if a business communicates its CSR activities in the areas of human resource; environment; product and customer; and community involvement to its stakeholders and their operations are replete with corruption and unethical business conduct. Furthermore, (Sulemana,
2016) on the other hand, looked at CSR communication using African telecommunications companies. Unfortunately, his data did not capture any telecommunications company from Ghana. This study intends to build on the work of (Sulemana,
2016) by narrowing on how telecommunications companies in Ghana disclose their CSR on their websites in five thematic areas: human resource; environment; product and customer; community involvement; and ethics, drawing inspirations from earlier studies by (Dineshwar,
2013; Hinson et al.,
2010 & Sulemana,
2016). This will add to the fairly growing literature in the area of CSR reporting in the Ghanaian context.
Research findings
The study reveals not a very impressive CSR disclosure by the five telecommunications companies in Ghana. As alluded elsewhere under the research framework, the five telecommunications companies were supposed to disclose their CSR contributions in five thematic areas: environment, human resource, product and customer, community involvement and ethical disclosure. In all, these companies were expected to disclose a total of 20 items comprising environment, 5; human resource, 3; product and customer, 3; community involvement, 5 and ethical disclosure, 4. From Table
2, it can be observed that these five companies reported in percentage terms 20% for MTN, 30% for Vodafone, 25% for Airtel, 20% for Tigo and 15% for Glo. Surprisingly, MTN Ghana has won the CSR Company of the year on two occasions in 2015 and 2016, while Airtel has even won a global CSR award in 2016. These numbers are not impressive to talk about as far as CSR disclosures are concerned. For individual thematic disclosures, the human resource theme was abysmally reported with none reporting on the three constructs that measure the human resource category. The environmental disclosure was also poorly reported, with only one company (Vodafone) reporting on the company concern for the environment. Perhaps, this could be a reflection of the assertion that there is no known hazardous impact, as yet of the operations of telecommunications companies to the environment. This was followed by the ethical category, with MTN reporting on only integrity, Vodafone on ethical or professional conduct and transparency, Airtel on only transparency, while Tigo and Glo reported on none in the ethical disclosure. The poor reportage on human resource, ethical disclosure and the environmental issues is consistent with the observation by (Visser et al.,
2010) that ethical and responsible behavior, obeying the law and work place issues receive low priority in CSR discussions. Lastly, the five telecommunications companies reported somehow better on the community involvement theme than all the other categories. Majority of the companies in this study reported on this theme, with none failing to report on anything as seen with the human resource category. Specifically, support for education and health were widely reported, with only Glo Ghana failing to report these two. The study also reveals that two of the telecommunications companies have departments solely responsible for CSR. These are MTN Ghana and Vodafone Ghana.
Table 2
CSR Reporting On Websites by the Selected Telecommunications Companies
Environmental disclosure | 1.Company concern for the environment | ● | ○ | ● | ● | ● |
2.Environmental audit | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
3. Conservation of energy in the conduct of business. | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
4.Consrvation of natural resources | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
5.Recycling/ e-waste management | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
Human resource disclosure | 1.Employee health and safety | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
2. Employee morale | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
3. Employee training | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
Product & Customer disclosure | 1.Product quality | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
2.Customer complaints/ satisfaction | ● | ● | ● | ● | ○ |
3. provision for physically challenged and difficult-to-reach customers | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
Community involvement disclosure | 1.Support for education | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
2. Support for health | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
3. youth entrepreneurship | ● | ● | ● | ○ | ○ |
4. Employee volunteerism | ● | ● | ● | ● | |
5. Sports sponsorship | ● | ● | ○ | ● | ○ |
Ethical disclosure | 1.Integrety | ○ | ● | ● | ● | ● |
2. Ethical/professional conduct | ● | ○ | ● | ● | ● |
| 3.Transparency | ● | ○ | ○ | ● | ● |
4. Equality & Diversity | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
Grand total | | 04 | 06 | 05 | 04 | 03 |
Percentages (%) | | 20 | 30 | 25 | 20 | 15 |
Conclusions and recommendations
From the forgoing discussions, it possible to argue that engaging in CSR is one thing and proactively communicating same online is another. In this regard, telecommunications companies must endeavor to exist in both “brick-and-mortar” format as well as online. The fact that some of these companies have won CSR awards and have not proactively communicated same could be reflection of what Hinson et al.,
2010described as poor synchronization of their integrated marketing communication strategy off-line and online. Even though, these companies have not well articulated their CSR issues online, they have not done badly as far as the community involvement theme is concerned, particularly with support for education and support for health. This is consistent with the reason put forward by (Zeghal & Ahmed,
1990), that because company’s websites are targeting many stakeholders including consumers, it is only reasonably plausible that they give much attention to community involvement than any other category. This has the potential of giving the telecommunications companies’ legitimacy in the eyes of the public. The dominant reportage on education and health by these telecommunications companies is only a reflection of the premium these companies place on education and health. This observation is consistent with the findings of Hinson and Kodua,
2012who in their study reported that issues of education and health are important. Furthermore, Hinson et al.,
2010assert that the concentration on education and health could be an apparent reflection of what stakeholders perceive as corporate social responsibility. As this could be described as one of the ways of eliciting legitimacy from stakeholders. With the view to coordinating their social investment they embark on, the study revealed that two of these telecommunications companies, MTN Ghana and Vodafone Ghana have “Foundations” to promote their CSR contributions in the areas they operate. This is in concert with the studies of (Tang & Li,
2009; Hinson and Kodua,
2012; Dashwood & Pupulampu,
2010) who in their respective studies found that companies established “Foundations” to coordinate their social investment. The study observed that these Foundations have separate vision statement, mission statement; objectives; aims as well as independent board different from the mother entity. This is to give bite to the intention of these two companies to prosecute their social investment competently.
The fact that there are several mediums through which CSR can be communicated including: websites, environmental reports independent of annual report, annual reports, community reports and press releases. The rests are extra supporting documents for annual reports, advertisement, video tapes, published articles and booklets regarding corporate environmental activities. This means that telecommunications companies in Ghana can choose to report on their CSR in any of these mediums. However, judging from the enormous benefits associated with CSR communication via websites (see Wanderly et al.,
2008; Branco & Rodrigues,
2006; Geerings and Hassink,
2003), it is incumbent that companies try to report their social contributions via websites. Failure to use the appropriate communications channels of one’s business activities could result in disbelief, doubt and uncertainty on the part of stakeholders (Abugre,
2011). Again, it also useful that companies must try to exist in both “brick-and-mortar” format as well as in “click-and-mortar format” (Singh,
2004), which is increasingly becoming cheaper with the advent a plethora of digital communications tools. Visibility is critically important in the market place and one of the surest way which companies can access visibility cheaply, is to report on their CSR via websites, which will go a long way to promote legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders. This study only looked at CSR communications on the websites of these telecommunications companies and not any other CSR disclosure medium in March and September, 2017 and any CSR initiative beyond this month is not covered. This study looked at CSR reporting in telecommunications sector in Ghana via websites, next research may look at triangulating these data by talking to CSR foundation managers. Future research might also consider comparing CSR in annual reports and CSR via corporate websites.