Abstract
The study analyses the gap between the corporate social investments (CSI)
projected by a petroleum company, and the community expectations about the
company’s CSI and consequently on the impact these perceptions have on the
company’s reputation among these stakeholders. Two-step qualitative research
design was used for this study. During the first stage of content analysis of a sample
of news releases about the company’s CSI initiatives, available on the company’s
website were analysed to identify how the company projects its CSI identity. In the
second stage, three focus groups were conducted with the community members to
identify the community perceptions about the company’s CSI initiatives and their
impact on the company’s reputation among the community. Data collected from the
study revealed that the CSI initiatives implemented were effective in contributing to
the social transformation; however, the organisation did not address the local
community’s concerns regarding environmental concerns. Communicating CSI
image effectively can assist in building a company’s reputation and developing a
positive perception from the stakeholders, which can result in a good
organisational reputation. The value of the study is to understand the impact of
communicating CSI to stakeholders has inbuilding perceptions of the organisation
in a community where the oil company operates. For ethical purpose, the authors
used a pseudonym to disguise the name of the organization and host community.