Critical Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global South: A Case Study of Groupe Chimique Tunisien

This thesis explores a critical investigation in modern Corporate Social Responsibility, arguing that its frameworks for accountability show systematic shortcomings when applied to the corporations in the Global South. It analyses the dominant models, created first and foremost within and from the institutional contexts based in the Global North, are empirically and epistemologically mis-structured in regard to complex realities for the TNCs located in historically disadvantaged. The universalization of related metrics and growth-centric imperative leads to the prolonged spillover effects, local stakeholders’ marginalization and severe consequences to the environmental degradation and social conflict in the regions, therefore misaligning with the planetary boundaries that are paramount to responsible management of such corporations. Employment of the analysis to the case study of Groupe Chimique Tunisien (GCT), a state-owned enterprise in Tunisia’s phosphate sector, that stands out as a critical litmus test for these flawed systems, allows to expose how the corporate governance, even though being regulated by the state in favour for the national development goals, is able to bring about acute socio-ecological crises–including community displacement, hazardous working conditions, environmental degradation–whilst being separated from the local ecological limits and social justice imperatives. The case confirms the hypothesis on how corporate accountability tends to be led by the industrial growth goals, putting in the background the stakeholder components and ecological integrity, leading to the catastrophic aftermath. In this regard, CSR fails to serve as the genuine instrument to accountability, revealing it can be only effective and relevant when processed through on-the-ground lens that is defined by the first and foremost well-being within contextualized reality and moving beyond the existing paradigm of infinite growth.