Organizational Learning and CSR Norms in the Mining Sector

Hevina S. Dashwood

Brock University

hdashwood@brocku.ca

Introduction

• Part of larger research project: influences on the CSR polices of mining companies

• Question: how important have emerging global CSR norms been?

• Relevance: growing role of the private sector in the provision of public goods

Organization

1. Context

2. Assumptions and Methodology

3. Research Findings

4. Central argument

5. Explanation

6. Conclusions

Context

• Devolution of state authority

• Importance of private sector CSR initiatives

• New global public domain (Ruggie)

Crisis of Legitimacy

• Mid-1990s:

• Bad reputation: widely publicized environmental disasters

• NGO targeting

• Tightening of environmental regulations

• Loss of access to minerals, markets and capital

Research Puzzle

• Mining companies in advanced industrialized economies: all facing these common constraints

• But, variation in their response

• How to explain this?

Assumptions

• Firms are responsive to normative shifts within the larger society

• Norms: inter-subjective understanding of appropriate behaviour

• International relations literature: dismissive of normative influence on firms

• Institutionalist approaches: firms situated in larger society

Methodology

• Case study: Noranda (now Xstrata) and Placer Dome (now Barrick)

• Strong commitment to CSR

• Early leaders in promoting CSR norms globally

Findings

1. Early 2000s: adoption of sustainable development/sustainability policies- global normative dynamics

2. Senior management: perceived experience of mining to be most important

3. Some mining companies taking on a leadership role: not just public relations

Central Argument

• Role of global CSR norms important…but cannot assign to much weight to their role

• Need to look at aspects internal to the companies themselves

Three Questions

1. How do mining executives perceive and interpret the influences around them?

2. What is the role of cognitive learning in explaining how managers responded to the crisis of legitimacy?

3. How do past experiences influence how companies develop their CSR policies?

Explanation

• Three elements:

1. Strategic adaptation

2. Cognitive learning process

3. Norms socialization

Strategic adaptation

• Interest-based response to environmental and social challenges

• Vulnerable to local community opposition

• Need for a “social license” to operate

Cognitive Learning Process

• “unlearning”

• Role of “policy entrepreneurs”

• “single loop learning”

• “double loop learning”

• Learning a dynamic, on-going process: requires external interaction and engagement

Norms socialization

• Where do the ideas come from?

• How do companies internalize emerging norms?

• Strategic adaptation can lead to conviction

• “Prescriptive status”

• Institutionalization

Conclusions

• Companies responsive to larger normative shifts in society

• Global initiatives that foster learning of critical importance

• Engagement with external actors valuable

• Compliance-based versus values-based approaches: the latter is better