Exploring multi-party collaboration towards shared value across a platinum mine

Abstract

The mining industry and its related activities presents a major source of income for many developed and developing countries. Despite this, the negative sentiment of the impacts of mining on the environment and communities that surround it are rising. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs largely legislated, are meant to address these impacts, yet to date, the ability for CSR to sustainably impact communities is a positive way is limited. CSR is considered an expense to companies and therefore regarded as unsustainable. An alternative to CSR is the concept of Shared Value, which speaks to a mutually beneficial relationship between a company and its stakeholders. The purpose of this research was to explore how multi parties, namely company, community and government, could, via collaboration, work together to achieve shared value across the context of a Platinum Mine in Limpopo, South Africa. It was found through this research that significant barriers exist to the concept of shared value. Some of the barriers are physical in nature (basic service and infrastructure for communities lacking) and other barriers relate to the condition of the relationship between the parties and impact of there-of. It was found that multi-party collaboration is not present. The study has found that if the concept of shared value is explored in the chosen context, it is vital that the relational aspects of trust, engagement, transparency and mutual respect are addressed and achieved. It has also been found that the concept of shared value in the theoretical context of present literature might not be attainable in this context due to the institutionalization and legislated nature of CSR in South Africa, therefore any implementation in this context will be in the form of a hybrid between the 2 concepts (Shared value and CSR).