A social licence to operate legitimacy test: Enhancing sustainability through contact quality

Marian Eabrasu (), Martin Brueckner and Rochelle Spencer
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Marian Eabrasu: Métis Lab EM Normandie - EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie = EM Normandie Business School
Martin Brueckner: Murdoch University [Perth]
Rochelle Spencer: Murdoch University [Perth]

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Abstract: The social licence to operate is a notoriously ambiguous concept that encompasses a patent normative heterogeneity, making the emergence of a widely accepted standard capable of settling controversies on its legitimate use seem unlikely. To cope with this issue, the article builds a model (adapted from Arnstein's ladder of public participation) to measure "contact quality," used here as a proxy for gauging the legitimacy of the social licence to operate. This model is tested on a case study from the minerals and energy sector (Base Titanium Mine in Kenya). Our findings show that a company can move up and down on the legitimacy scale, depending on the contact quality with company stakeholders. The interest of providing a social licence heuristic is to make sense of the theoretical controversies surrounding this concept and to offer also realistic guidance to practitioners searching to understand where a firm sits on the legitimacy scale, to enhance transparency and accountability of its social licence to operate and ultimately improve business practice.

Keywords: social licence to operate (SLO); Public participation; Legitimacy; Minerals and energy sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://normandie-univ.hal.science/hal-04455602v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Journal of Cleaner Production, 2021, 293, pp.126080. ⟨10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126080⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04455602

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126080

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