ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to show how companies co-create that reality through inadequate management systems and through their tendency to externalise problems and solutions. Unlike industries that depend on cheap labour, such as apparel or light manufacturing, extractive resource companies have limited control over where they can operate. Geology and geography are the major determinants. Such resources present companies with a host of challenges that cannot necessarily be resolved through engineering solutions or using the experience gained in more developed regions. Because of their proximity to the resource, communities in developing areas become host to modern, technologically driven industries whose main interest is extracting resources at the least possible cost. The company and the government became used to a relationship driven by the company’s need to both generate assent through development aid and avoid dissent from communities. In the extractive sector, the threat–reward dynamic is driven by a mentality informed by a view of the world as a closed, mechanical system.
