Corporate social responsibility and multinational enterprise identity: insights from a mining company's attempt to localise in Ghana

This paper investigates how a US gold mining multinational
enterprise (MNE) – one of the world’s largest – operates its
subsidiaries in various parts of the world by creating a unique
‘glocal identity’. The US parent company has experienced several
significant challenges across its network of subsidiaries. These
challenges were mostly linked to the enforcement of the MNE’s
identity and culture in its host environment. We contribute by
describing, in detail, the attempts made by this company to
localise its corporate social responsibility practices in Ghana as it
sought to gain legitimacy and create an identity that would
overcome the issues relating to the liability of foreignness. Our
data come from a combination of sources, including
questionnaires and detailed semi-structured interviews conducted
with the key management employees of the mining company,
members and opinion leaders of the company’s host
communities, and secondary sources. Our main finding is that the
construction of a ‘host-friendly’ identity was centred around the
mining company’s involvement with the Newmont Ahafo
Development Foundation.