THE SOCIAL OPERATING LICENSE OF CORPORATIONS: MINING COMPANIES AND THEIR CONSTITUENTS

Dumitru Borțun () and Camelia Crişan ()
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Dumitru Borțun: National School of Political Studies and Administration, Bucharest, Romania
Camelia Crişan: National School of Political Studies and Administration, Bucharest, Romania

No 15, Social Responsibility, Ethics and Sustainable Business from Bucharest University of Economic Studies

Abstract: Several authors from the CSR literature have proposed the term “license to operate” when referring to companies and their activities in the relevant communities (Visser, 2008, Post, Preston & Sachs, 2002). Others have implied this term when referring to the types of responsibilities a company needs to have in order to be able to exercise its activity in the society (Blair [1994] 2004, Clarke [1998] 2004 and Philips 2003). Consultancy companies have already coined the term: social license to operate, especially when referring to mining activities “existing when a project has the ongoing approval within the local community and other stakeholders, ongoing approval or broad social acceptance and, most frequently, as ongoing acceptance” (http://socialicense.com /definition.html). Media has also asked this question, not only rhetorically, but as a result of new ideas and developments in the business arena (Maidment, 2010http://www.forbes.com/sites/davos/2010/01/28/does-business-need-a-social-licence/) – do businesses need a social license to operate? This view is particularly important when we discuss the case of corporations which are exploiting non-renewable resources, like oil and mining companies. In their particular case, the debate is whether the license to operate should be provided by a local community, a series of stakeholders or by an entire nation. For this purpose, the authors will examine the case of Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (a mining company), a situation where the company was a failure both in obtaining the social and the environmental license to operate and will draw a few conclusions that might help other companies in the future.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; license to operate; mining companies; stakeholder engagement; corporate citizens (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10
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Published in Working Papers Series on Social Responsibility, Ethics & Sustainable Business

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