FROM CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TO STRATEGIC NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION: REPOSITIONING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FOR NIGERIA'S SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

I return all glory and thanks to Almighty God for His grace, mercy and faithfulness in my life and academic journey. I stand before this distinguished audience with deep gratitude and humility to deliver the 155th Inaugural Lecture of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma. I am especially privileged to be able to deliver this lecture as the 2nd in the Department of Business Administration and the 7th in the Faculty of Management Sciences. An inaugural lecture is not just an occasion to count one's publications or celebrate one's academic career. It enables me to describe in my own words the questions that have shaped my scholarship, the evidence that has informed it, the limits of that evidence, and the contribution I hope to make to knowledge and society. The question, which is the subject of this lecture, has been with me throughout my educational career. I started at the level of business organization, asking how does corporate responsibility relate to organisational performance? I became interested in strategic management and corporate governance later on how organisations set direction, allocate assets, exercise authority, manage competing interests and sustain performance. From there the question naturally widened. Can the determinants of organisational effectiveness shed light on the ways in which nations become capable of sustainable development? I am not saying that a country is only a big business, it obviously is not. The state has constitutional powers and authority, sovereignty and coercive powers, public responsibilities and political institutions that have no direct corporate counterpart. I ask not to simply graft wholesale corporate governance onto government but rather to explore how its underlying principles of strategic direction, accountability, stakeholder coordination, institutional capability, long-term value creation and sustainability can shed light on public governance when thoughtfully adapted to the public realm.