NIGERIA TELECOMMUNICATION SECTOR: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY,A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPIC ON ACCOUNTING
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Corporate Social Responsibility an essentially American phenomenon has over the years become a major concern in Western Europe and in other countries of the world following the western model of development.
According to Drucker, (1986:66).The genesis of the debate on the concept of corporate social responsibility has been traced to the wave of crisis in social values that engulfed America in the post World War II period and most especially in the sixties. The Chief Executive of General Motors who observed the changing trend could not help observing:
“I am concerned about a society that has demonstrably lost confidence in its institutions – in the government, in the press, in the church, in the military, as well as in business”.
Business to America has had a most unique history. Its development growth and impact on social life in America since the civil war II is almost common knowledge. What may not be common knowledge, however, is the fact that business which has hitherto shaped and controlled the lives of millions of Americans some two hundred years ago is today being threatened by a wave of protests from various publics it uses to serve. The crisis of confidence in the social role of business as made explicit in debates on corporate social responsibility points to the fact that America sees big business as a big powerful machine gone out of control. And efforts to control and at least re-orientate its directions form the core of the argument of all who urge business to change with the times. In other words, to deemphasize its so much vaunted profit maximization dogma and pay attention to the human lives and environment which it is subtly, ruthlessly and almost surely grinding out of existence. As one of the protagonists has viewed the concept of corporate social responsibility it is a crude blend of long-run profit-making and altruism, a doctrine which fuses social values with profit maximization goals.