Executive Leadership

Organizational Reactions to External and Internal Environment Force Trends

Romanus Iwuanyanwu

Corporate Social Responsibility/B7432

Graduate School of Business

Argosy University

April, 2013

M8: A2. Companies and CSR Trends

For continued success, a business must be ready to adapt to external forces. To adapt, an organization must recognize what external forces are likely to prompt change. Ignoring those external forces, and pretending that an organization operates in a vacuum, can lead to its failure in the market or to its collapse from within. The main external environmental forces are compacted in this mnemonic, PEST which stands for political, economical, social and technological forces. Each of this can force a trend that any organization that mishandles any of them can see its demise. Corporate social responsibility is the act by any business entity to be a good business citizen, being responsible, accountable, trustworthy, having integrity and humane. The case of the operation of Shell in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is a sore scenario to remember.

Shell operation and civil disturbances in the Niger Delta

In the 1900s according to Lawrence and Weber (2008), there was a civil disturbance in Ogoniland and other Niger Delta communities directed at Shell. In the one f the typical incidents as reported by Shell, the authors report, a gang of youths attacked a drilling rig in the Ahia oil field, lootiung and vandalizing the faciklity and rig camp. Rig workers were held hostage for most of the day while property worth of 46 million was destroyed or stolen. The rig was shut down for 10 days and the Ahia flow station was also shut down. The leader of the protesters raised the issue of the distribution of the oil revenues to the oil producing communities by the government, the need for a new road, and rumors of bribery by shell of the local chiefs. Shell reported a series of unending attacks on their facilities which peaked in 1993 and...