CSR Institute Talk: The Resource Curse & What Firms Can Do About It
- Date
- March 07, 2017
- Time
- 12:00 PM EST - 2:00 PM EST
- Location
- Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, 55 Dundas St. West, Toronto [9th floor, room TRS 3-119]
Video: https://ryecast.ryerson.ca/12/Watch/11259.aspx
Presentation (PDF/PPT): (PDF file) Robert Boutilier
The natural resource curse hypothesis conditionally connects national dependence on natural resource revenues to both declines in democracy and slow economic growth. The literature based on nation states as the unit of analysis has converged on the importance of weak institutions in permitting corruption and fostering rent seeking, both of which hurt national economic growth and impair democratic accountability. This presentation looks at how the same dynamics present themselves in daily events at mining project sites and what project managers have tried to do to prevent the curse from taking root in mining communities. The curse-inducing processes are illustrated by looking at the curse related events throughout the life cycle of Placer Dome’s Misima Mine in Papua New Guinea. The case highlights the need to take account of the interactions among institutions at multiple levels of jurisdiction and the importance of traditional or indigenous institutions in protecting both formal and informal contracts and property rights. The case also suggests some practical steps resource companies can take, in the name of CSR, to help fortify institutions against corruption and rent seeking. However, the findings of this study, and the broader literature on corruption and rent seeking, suggest that developing effective practical advice for companies will require a concerted research effort over years if not decades. One promising avenue for future research may be to understand how countries with less corruption and rent seeking evolved to be so odd. To that end, institution-strengthening initiatives in Angola are contrasted with the spontaneous emergence of strong institutions in Botswana.
This event is co-sponsored by the Ryerson CSR Student Association, the Ryerson Commerce and Government Association, and the Ryerson Law and Business Student Association. This event is supported by the Canadian Standards Association and the Trade Commissioner Service of Global Affairs Canada.
Robert Boutilier specializes in developing strategies for gaining and maintaining a social license, which usually involves doing most of the things covered by CSR. He has conducted research projects and workshop on stakeholder engagement and community relations in over 20 countries and has measured the social license of over 50 mining projects. Dr. Boutilier also studies the social license of the whole mining industry and is a pioneer in modeling the socio-political dynamics swirling around resource projects. Robert is an associate of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and of the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Melbourne. He has published three books and over a dozen scholarly articles and book chapters on topics in issues management, socio-economic development, social psychology, and stakeholder relations.