The article focuses on corporate social responsibility in the area of human resources management practised in Zimbabwe’s gold mining sector.
This study aimed to assess socially responsible human resources management practised by Zimbabwe’s gold mining sector. The study also determines which among the five governance systems; local private, government-owned, listed on Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, multinational not listed and listed on foreign stock exchanges leads in this regard.
Mining industries are usually labour-intensive. Corporate social responsibility and human resources management are indispensable components of mining companies.
The study uses a multiple case study design with a population of 35 large-scale gold mining companies that are members of both Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe and Mine Industry Pension Fund. Twenty-three companies participated in the study. The study uses mixed methods approach using a questionnaire and structured interviews to collect quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. Kruskal–Wallis rank test was used to test the differences in the governance structures’ performances.
The results indicate that gold mining companies exercise socially responsible human resources management and the listed on foreign stock exchanges have the highest index signifying best performance, followed by government-owned.
The corporates can improve their social responsibility in human resources management by using the balanced scorecard to assess their own performances. The regulation prescribes most human resources management issues in the mining sector. Managers can benefit from the perceptions of the workers concerning how other governance structures implement socially responsible human resources management.
This study contributes to the previous literature on socially responsible human resources management by illuminating the possible role played by governance structure in corporate social responsibility adoption. Theoretical perspectives of the firm, which are shareholder, stakeholder and societal, cannot act alone to explain the complex phenomenon of structure-conduct-performance in assessing the nature of socially responsible human resources management. Therefore, future research must combine the principles of these perspectives with concepts of the legal environment, board structure and managerial attitudes as determinants of the nature and scope of socially responsible human resources management.
Mining drives economic development worldwide (Pedro et al.,
Mining has different impacts on the biophysical environment, social environment and economic environment Pedro et al. (
Mining industries are usually labour-intensive (Guliwe,
The framework for analysing the socially responsible human resources management Zhao and Zhou (
Traditionally organisations account for only those items that can be reduced to monetary value. It has been challenging to convert social practices and performance into financial values and more difficult when the assessment is extended to the sphere of human resources management (Mansour,
The shareholder perspective is important as a view which describes the way in which corporates are guided by this perspective practise what Zhao and Zhou (
The corporates which are governed by the shareholder perspective emphasise profit maximisation and accordingly the governance proposes that the business concern should only consider the decisions that maximise the shareholders’ wealth (Khan & Hussanie,
Shareholder wealth maximisation view holds it that higher compensation can reduce the portion of the value created by the corporate and reduce the economic benefits created from human capital resources (Barney,
Stakeholder perspective propounded by Freeman (
Barney (
While stakeholder perspective considers both internal and external stakehoders, the societal perspective has additional stakeholders which are the international stakeholders.
The societal perspective suggests that besides adhering to national rules and regulations guiding human resources management, corporates must contend with the global framework of rules and regulations (Monteiro, Aibar-Guzmán, Garrido-Ruso, & Aibar-Guzmán,
Corporate governance systems and predicted performance.
Theoretical governance system | Company categories predicted to conform to the model | Predicted performance in socially responsible human resources management |
---|---|---|
Shareholder | Local private companies |
Shareholder primacy and wealth maximisation |
Government-owned companies |
||
Stakeholder | Companies listed in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange |
Pay attention to stakeholder demands |
Societal | Companies listed in foreign stock exchanges |
Integrate and support socially responsible practices within business organisations in different global locations |
Multinational companies not listed but with headquarters abroad |
Critical aspects assessed in the socially responsible human resources management.
The research design used is the case study design, using the large scale gold mining sector in Zimbabwe. The study makes use of multiple cases.
Given the sector’s significance to the country’s economic development, this study seeks to establish the corporate social responsibility performance in the area of human resources management by large-scale gold mining companies given their different governance structure and predicted conduct and perfomance.
The purpose of the study is to assess the scope and nature of human resources management practised by Zimbabwe’s gold mining sector. In addition, the study aims to determine which among the five governance systems operating in Zimbabwe’s gold mining sector leads the industry in human resources management in a socially responsible way. These five governance systems are the local private, listed on the Zimbabwe Stock, listed in foreign stock exchanges, government-owned companies and multinational companies with parent companies abroad but not listed. The study also aims to determine which among the companies identified by governance systems perform best.
The study adopted an assessment based on Vintro and Comanjuncosa’s (
The study employed a mixed-methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative research philosophical underpinnings (Almeida,
The subjective measures of companies’ socially responsible human resources management composed of two broad categories: social protection and ECR. Social protection sought employees’ perceptions of companies’ practices. The Cronbach’s alpha test was used to test the instrument’s reliability. According to Taber (
The three categories were treated as follows: low level was 1, medium level was 2 and high level was 3.
These subjective values of α, β, and γ were then combined with objective measures to come up with the CSR indices, as shown in the formulas and algorithms provided in the following section.
This research evaluates the gold mining sector’s socially responsible human resources management performance in Zimbabwe using the modified balanced scorecard. The study used gold mining companies categorised by size and the governance systems among private companies. Companies listed in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, companies listed in foreign stock exchanges, government-owned and multinational companies not listed in any stock exchange but with parent companies abroad were also evaluated. The process included place-based ethnographic observation of mining corporates, a survey, and socio-economic and political analysis across the selected multiple cases of gold mines. Most socially responsible human resources management research has mostly been carried out more from the managerial perspective only at the exclusion of other workers (Tabatabaei et al.,
This research proposes the use of a modified balanced scorecard as initially propounded by Kaplan and Norton (
At the time of the study, the target population consisted of 35 large-scale gold mining companies that were members of both the Chamber of Mines in Zimbabwe and Mines Industry Pension Fund. Out of the 35 mining companies, 23 participated (representing 66% of the target population). There was no limit to the number of respondents completing the questionnaires from the participating mines. All mining companies employees were eligible respondents; however only those provided by the mining companies willing to participate. Local private companies had six participating mining companies and a total of 34 respondents from this category. Mining companies listed in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange also had six participating companies and a total of 34 respondents. There were five companies listed in foreign stock exchanges participating with a total of 46 respondents. Government-owned had two participating mining companies with 30 respondents. Multinational companies not listed had four companies participating and 32 respondents. Empoyees from the 23 mining companies were the respondents to the questionnaire and there were 206 respondents who completed the questionnaires. All the 206 questionnaires were collected as they were administered personally, however from these 206 completed questionnaires only 176 were appropriately completed and subsequently used.
The algorithms and formulas used to calculate the mining sector’s performance on employee corporation indices were adapted from Vintro and Comanjuncosa (
Security Level (SL):
Training and Capacity (TC):
Collective Bargaining (CB):
An index for ECR would be determined using the following formula: ECR = α1SL + β1TC + γ1CB, where the α1, β1 and γ1are values based on subjective assessments and SL, TC and CB are objective measures for security level, training capacity and collective bargaining, respectively, that were obtained using the formulas as shown above. The index reflects the companies’ CSR efforts towards providing training capacity, security level, and an environment suitable for collective bargaining. The next aspect is social protection, the formulas and algorithms used to calculate social protection indices using objective measures.
Retirement Plans (RP) supported by the corporation:
Medical Aid (MA) supported by the corporation:
Prevention of Conflictive Situations (VC):
The social protection index is determined using the following formula: Social protection (SP) = α2RP + β2 MA + γ2VC, where α2, β2, and γ2 are calculated values based on subjective measures. Retirement Plans (RP), MA, and VC’s objective measures are retirement plans, medical assurance occurrence of confrontational situation, respectively. The human resources index would be the sum of employee corporation indices. This index reflects the overall CSR effort towards these internal stakeholders. According to Vintro and Comanjuncosa (
The research was approved by Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development Zimbabwe through a clearance which authorises the researcher to contact all government departments and quasi government departments. The Institutional Review Board at a large North-western public university approved the research. The individual interviews were conducted by the first author and then transcribed by both researcher and research assistant who were sworn to confidentiality. All participants for both quantitative and qualitative signed an informed consent form and these were kept by the researcher. The participants were informed that they had the right to withdraw from the research process at any moment and that they could request that the information that they provided be discarded and excluded from the analysis. The participants were able to withdraw without providing any reason. They were also informed that they could skip any questions that they did not feel comfortable answering.
The North-West University Economics and Management Sciences Research Ethics Committee (EMS-REC) approved the study as a minimal risk study NWU-O1367-19-A4.
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient determined the reliability and internal consistency. The internal consistency in measurement refers to whether all measuring criteria measure the same construct or concept (Sharma,
Employee corporation relations consists of security level, training capacity and collective bargaining practices as indicators.
Employee perceptions on security level, training capacity and collective bargaining.
Governance Structure- ownership type | % of respondents saying |
|||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
High CB |
Medium CB |
Low CB |
High TC |
Medium TC |
Low TC |
High SL |
Medium SL |
Low SL |
||||||||||
% | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | ||||||||||
Local private limited company | 22 | 64.71 | 4 | 11.76 | 8 | 23.53 | 23 | 67.65 | 5 | 14.71 | 6 | 17.65 | 23 | 67.65 | 2 | 5.88 | 9 | 26.47 |
Listed in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange | 20 | 58.82 | 14 | 41.18 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 82.35 | 6 | 17.65 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 76.47 | 8 | 23.53 | 0 | 0 |
Listed in foreign stock exchange | 43 | 93.48 | 1 | 2.17 | 2 | 4.35 | 44 | 95.65 | 2 | 4.35 | 0 | 0 | 45 | 97.83 | 1 | 2.17 | 0 | 0 |
Government-owned companies | 19 | 63.33 | 4 | 13.33 | 7 | 23.33 | 19 | 63.33 | 5 | 16.67 | 6 | 20 | 18 | 60 | 3 | 10 | 9 | 30 |
Multinationals not listed | 19 | 59.38 | 6 | 18.75 | 7 | 21.88 | 22 | 68.75 | 5 | 15.63 | 5 | 15.63 | 22 | 68.75 | 1 | 3.13 | 9 | 28.13 |
Total | 123 | 63.89 | 29 | 16.48 | 24 | 13.64 | 136 | 77.27 | 23 | 13.07 | 17 | 9.66 | 134 | 76.14 | 15 | 8.52 | 27 | 15.34 |
Pearson chi2(8) = 37.7663 Pr = 0.0000 | Pearson chi2(8) = 21.8104 Pr = 0.0005 | Pearson chi2(8) = 35.789 Pr = 0.0000 |
CB, collective bargaining; SL, security level; TC, training capacity.
As shown in
Security level focuses on perceptions of employees on whether their mining company has procedures to stop any form of discrimination in the workplace, promoting diversity in the workforce and at the same time encouraging whistle blowing.
Socially responsible practices primarily focus on the workers in investment areas in human resources, empowerment through training within the company. The training capacity section assessed whether the companies funded capacity building by providing a budget for training, organising training and financing other capacity-building activities.
In this respect, the mining companies listed in the foreign stock exchange are the highest performers, with 93.48% of the respondents reporting high collective bargaining levels. The least performers are local mining companies listed in the stock exchange, not listed multinational mining companies and local private companies. An executive from one of the companies listed in the stock exchange commented that their collective bargaining system might not be that visible because the company already has an alternative system in place, which takes care of the pertinent issues proactively. One executive also pointed out that collective bargaining is deeply enshrined in the Labour Act with a Mineworkers’ Union formed under the provisions of the Labour Act.
Objective measures reflect what is on the ground, based on estimates obtained from the companies’ accounting data. In this section, the results come from applying the social protection formulas given above.
Employee corporation relations.
Governance Structure, ownership type | Security level (SL) | Training capacity (TC) | Collective bargaining (CB) | α1SL | β1TC | γ1CB | Employee corporation relations |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Local private limited | 0.93 | 0.91 | 1.00 | 17.42 | 17.61 | 18.68 | 53.70 |
Listed in Zimbabwe Stock Exchange | 0.94 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 16.57 | 18.13 | 16.80 | 51.51 |
Listed in Foreign Stock Exchange | 0.95 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 20.83 | 21.15 | 20.74 | 62.72 |
Government-owned | 0.90 | 0.88 | 1.00 | 16.39 | 15.89 | 16.69 | 48.97 |
Multinational companies not listed | 0.88 | 0.85 | 0.93 | 15.15 | 15.49 | 15.94 | 46.58 |
chi-squared | 30.77 | 16.47 | 21.37 | 42.62 | 35.02 | 27.86 | 43.46 |
0.0001 | 0.0001 | 0.0003 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 |
CB, collective bargaining; SL, security level; TC, training capacity.
Results in
A combination of objective and subjective measures were used to determine the indices and make inferences about the mining sector’s performance on ECR. The results on ECR appear in
As shown in
This section evaluates corporate social responsibility in the area of social protection. The section assesses the retirement plans, medical assurances and whether violent or conflictive situations between the company management and the employees have occurred. Subjective measures are the first to be presented.
Retirement plan, medical assurance, conflictive situation.
Governance Structure-ownership type | % of respondents saying |
|||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
High RP |
Medium RP |
Low RP |
High MA |
Medium MA |
Low MA |
High VC |
Medium VC |
Low VC |
||||||||||
% | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | ||||||||||
Local private limited company | 14 | 41.18 | 10 | 29.41 | 10 | 29.41 | 22 | 64.71 | 4 | 11.76 | 8 | 23.53 | 3 | 8.82 | 11 | 32.35 | 20 | 58.82 |
Listed in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange | 27 | 79.41 | 7 | 20.59 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 91.18 | 3 | 8.82 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 79.41 | 7 | 20.59 | 0 | 0 |
Listed in foreign stock exchange | 32 | 69.57 | 14 | 30.43 | 0 | 0 | 44 | 95.65 | 1 | 2.17 | 1 | 2.17 | 18 | 39.13 | 10 | 21.74 | 18 | 39.13 |
Government-owned companies | 19 | 63.33 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 36.67 | 17 | 56.67 | 7 | 23.33 | 6 | 20 | 20 | 66.67 | 9 | 30 | 1 | 3.33 |
Multinationals not listed | 6 | 18.75 | 16 | 50.00 | 10 | 31.25 | 19 | 59.38 | 7 | 21.88 | 6 | 18.75 | 12 | 37.5 | 19 | 59.38 | 1 | 3.13 |
Total | 98 | 55.68 | 47 | 26.7 | 31 | 17.61 | 133 | 75.57 | 22 | 12.5 | 21 | 11.93 | 80 | 45.45 | 56 | 31.82 | 40 | 22.73 |
Pearson chi2(8) = 56.1322 Pr = 0.0000 | Pearson chi2(8) = 30.4278 Pr = 0.0000 | Pearson chi2(8) = 76.0098 Pr = 0.0000 |
RP, Retirement Plan; MA, Medical Assurance; VC, Conflictive Situation.
The mining companies are expected to put measures to protect their employees by availing retirement plans, medical aid plans and prevention of occurrence of violent conflictive situation.
As shown in
Likewise, 69.57% of respondents from the mining companies listed in the foreign exchange rated the existing retirement plans highly. The least performers are the multinationals not listed and the local private companies using subjective measures. One key informant from a not listed multinational company commented that there are many changes in the management because of a seemingly new shareholding structure. Some top Chinese managers joined the company and suspended subscriptions to the Mine Industry Pension Fund.
Mine employees are susceptible to safety threats. Thus, mine companies are expected to initiate measures to ensure employees’ health and safety. One of these measures would be to put medical insurance policies that make medical attention available to workers and their families. As shown in
Companies’ ability to provide for dialogue reduces eruptive situations like strikes or sit-ins. The absence of conflictive situations indicates that the companies are sensitive to their employees’ economic and social needs. As shown in
However a workers’ union representative from companies listed in the foreign stock exchange said that the labour Act in Zimbabwe is against any violent or conflictive workplace situation. The union representative explained that before engaging in a collective job action like a strike, workers are expected to give a 14-day notice to their employment council, the Ministry of Labour and the employer. The employer is allowed to apply what is referred to as a ‘show cause order’ with the Ministry of Labour or the Labour Court to stop the industrial action. This ‘show cause order’ can be given by a Labour Court, President of the country or the Minister of Labour after application by the aggrieved party to show why a disposal order should not be made in relation to the industrial action. Given such a situation, the union representative lamented that it is not easy to embark on a legal strike. This long process contributes to a lack of sensitivity by employers towards any violent or conflictive situations. It is rare to have a legal strike and pointless to have an illegal one for it achieves nothing.The above elaboration partly explains why there are no violent conflictive situations in the gold mining sector.
The objective measures of social protection refer to how the mine companies provide for social protection economically and socially.
Social protection.
Governance Structure- ownership type | Objective measures |
subjective and objective measures combined |
SP index |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Retirement plans | Medical assurance plans | Conflictive situation | α2RP | β2 MA | γ2VC | Social protection | |
Local Pvt. Ltd. | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 17.4706 | 19.2941 | 12.3235 | 49.0882 |
Listed in Zimbabwe Stock Exchange | 0.9265 | 0.9265 | 0.9986 | 17.3235 | 17.9411 | 18.2690 | 53.5337 |
Listed in Foreign Stock Exchange | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 0.9994 | 20.6957 | 22.1304 | 14.9241 | 57.7502 |
Government-owned | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 16.8000 | 18.0333 | 19.0000 | 53.8333 |
Multi-national companies | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 1.0000 | 14.5313 | 17.78125 | 16.875 | 49.1875 |
chi-squared | 21.371 | 21.371 | 19.341 | 27.339 | 37.719 | 46.204 | 19.167 |
0.0003 | 0.0003 | 0.0007 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 |
RP, Retirement Plan; MA, Medical Assurance; VC, Conflictive Situation; SP, social protection; Pvt. Ltd., Private limited.
As shown in
The social protection index was generated by combining the subjective estimates and objective measures of retirement plans and medical insurance supported by the mining companies and whether a strike or other conflictive situation occurred. The formula below sums up the social protection index, SP
As shown in
The human resources index reflects the overall assessment of socially responsible human resources management for the mining companies. This index summarises the mining companies’ environmental performance by category. The index is obtained by combining ECR and social protection indices. (Where: ECR = α1SL + β1TC + γ1CB and Social Protection, SP
Socially responsible human resources management would be the sum of ECR and social protection, Socially Responsible Human Resources Management (SHRM) = ECR + SP.
Composite indices for socially responsible human resources management.
Index | Employee corporation relations | Social protection | Socially responsible Human resources management |
---|---|---|---|
Local Pvt. Ltd. | 53.70 | 49.09 | 102.79 |
Listed in Zimbabwe Stock Exchange | 48.97 | 53.53 | 102.51 |
Listed in Foreign Stock Exchange | 62.72 | 57.75 | 120.47 |
Government-owned | 51.51 | 53.83 | 105.34 |
Multinational companies | 46.585 | 49.19 | 95.76 |
chi-squared | 43.46 | 19.17 | 33.35 |
0.0001 | 0.0001 | 0.0001 |
Pvt. Ltd., Private limited.
The results in
The research attempted to assess the scope and nature of socially responsible human resources management in the gold mining sector in Zimbabwe using the modified balanced scorecard approach. The results revealed that the gold mining sector in Zimbabwe practises sound socially responsible human resources management; however the results showed that there are different degrees in the extent to which they practise their management. The companies listed in foreign exchanges have the highest index indicating their best degree of performance. This is in line with extant literature, which supports that companies with a global link have a societal approach to CSR because they have to consider the international standards. Clarke and Crane (
The government-owned companies predicted to be classical and shareholder-oriented have performed beyond expectation. There are no strikes or job actions reported, and a possible explanation is the regulatory environment. According to Buhmann, Jonsson and Fisker (
All indicators used are very important to sound human resources management. However with the aspect of training needs assessments must be carefully done so that the training benefits both the employees trained and the mining company.
This study contributes to the previous literature on socially responsible human resources management by illuminating the possible role played by governance structure in CSR adoption.
The modified balanced scorecard framework used points to the idea that companies can adopt the same method to evaluate their performance. The corporates can increase the extent to which they can improve their corporate social responsibility in human resources management by using the balanced scorecard to assess their own individual performances.
This research has some limitations, which also serve as potential opportunities for future research. Theoretical perspectives of the firm, which are classical, stakeholder and societal, cannot act alone to explain the complex phenomenon of SCP in assessing the nature of socially responsible human resources management. The classical, stakeholder and societal perspectives provide a basis to integrate the extant CSR performance literature. Yet, more factors like the institutional and legal environment impact on the performance.
This suggests further research, which can build on the mining companies’ capabilities to respond to socially responsible human resources management needs. Therefore, further research combines critical principles of the company’s classical, stakeholder and societal views with concepts of legal institutions and more about the structure. The future research should include board structure and managerial attitudes as determinants of the nature and scope of socially responsible human resources management.
The research attempted to evaluate the scope and nature of socially responsible human resources management performance of gold mining companies in Zimbabwe using the modified balanced scorecard approach. The assessment revealed that all companies practise socially responsible human resource management. The companies listed in the foreign stock exchange have the highest index. The study also aimed to determine which among the companies identified by governance systems perform best and the results they have differences in the extent to which they do so with companies listed in foreign exchanges outperforming all other categories.
Antonette Bisshoff for language and technical precision editing.
The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.
L.N. is a PhD student at the North-West University Business School Potchefstroom Campus. R.L. is the study supervisor and A.S. the co-supervisor.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
The data for this article is held by the first author on behalf of North-West University as data was collected for PhD research.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors.