| dc.description.abstract | The general objective of this thesis was to explore ‘what else could be done to fight poverty in Africa, Is there a role for multinational corporations (MNC) through corporate social responsibility (CSR)? To address this issue, this study set out to investigate the local understanding of poverty and CSR and how MNCs could help address the problem in Uganda. I hypothesised based on the concept of legitimacy (derived from both the institutional and stakeholder theories) that both internal stakeholders (represented by Sheraton employees) and as external stakeholders (represented by members of the public accessing the Sheraton supported public garden and student trainees doing their industrial attachment at Sheraton) will have similar views and opinions on the investigated issues. To undertake this study, I used both qualitative and quantitative methods where structured questionnaires, open ended questions, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were undertaken.
On poverty, the majority of respondents identified individual level definitions of poverty such as: ‘a lack of basic needs’, and ‘low income/ low purchasing power’, with convergence of views by both internal and external stakeholders. On local perceptions on corporate social responsibility (CSR), the qualitative data from this study fitted very well with Caroll’s four main CSR themes. However, the weighting of Caroll’s themes in this study was different from that reported both by Caroll (1991) in the USA and by Visser (2005) in South Africa. There was overall convergence on perceptions of CSR by both the internal and external stakeholders
Lastly on the role of multinationals in eradicating poverty, the majority of respondents believed that MNCs had a role to play in eradicating poverty. The most cited roles included: providing employment, contributing to community development projects, and providing industrial training to youth, with convergence of views and opinions by both the internal and external stakeholders.
The overall finding of this thesis is that the urban community in Uganda regards poverty as a multifaceted problem which requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders including MNCs through CSR. Governments in the region should therefore formalise the implementation of CSR to better harness it for development. | nb_NO |
