The effect of bidirectional opinion diffusion on social license to operate

Kyle Bahr () and Masami Nakagawa
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Kyle Bahr: Tohoku University
Masami Nakagawa: Colorado School of Mines

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2017, vol. 19, issue 4, No 7, 1235-1245

Abstract: Abstract This is a companion paper to an earlier work in which an agent-based model is proposed by Nakagawa et al. for exploring the emergent phenomena of social license to operate (SLO) of a mining company. In this paper, the structure of the original model is described, along with the enhanced ability for the two-way diffusion of information and opinion among agents. This is achieved through the addition of a global “dialogue” variable, which dictates the extent to which higher influence agents accept opinion from agents of lower influence. Initial findings suggest that the bidirectional diffusion of information has a large effect on the time that the modelling population takes to reach a Social License consensus, and the effect is especially pronounced for low dialogue values. In other words, the Social License of communities characterized by a low preference for dialogue (as opposed to “top-down” mandated communication) will be largely affected by small changes in the preference for dialogue. Findings also suggest that as a modelling community becomes more and more open to dialogue, the effect on the time to consensus becomes less and less pronounced until it becomes negligible at a fairly low dialogue level.

Keywords: Agent-based modelling; Consensus; Dialogue; Information diffusion; Social license to operate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1007/s10668-016-9792-9

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