Company-community dialogue builds relationships, fairness, and trust leading to social acceptance of Australian mining developments

Mercer-Mapstone, L; Rifkin, W; Louis, WR; Moffat, K

Company-community dialogue builds relationships, fairness, and trust leading to social acceptance of Australian mining developments

Mercer-Mapstone, L

Rifkin, W Louis, WR Moffat, K

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Journal of Cleaner Production, 2018, 184 pp. 671 - 677
Issue Date:: 2018-05-20

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Mercer-Mapstone, L https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7441-6568	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Rifkin, W	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Louis, WR	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Moffat, K	en_US
dc.date.issued	2018-05-20	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Journal of Cleaner Production, 2018, 184 pp. 671 - 677	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0959-6526	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/131705
dc.description.abstract	© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Social licence to operate has become an integral part of the discourse around social accountability for mining globally. Meaningful engagement between companies and communities has been proposed as a foundation for relationships that support a social licence. The links among these elements are investigated in the present research, which developed and tested a model exploring correlations between one such engagement mechanism, dialogue, and company-community relationships. It also considered other critical elements of social licence, including procedural fairness, trust, and social acceptance of mining. Survey participants (N = 560) were Australians living close to mining or natural gas development across 11 non-metropolitan regions in Australia. Path analyses showed that the more positive community members’ experiences of dialogue were, the stronger their relationships with company personnel and the more they perceived that the procedures used by the mining industry were fair. These factors, fairness and relationships, mediated the significant indirect effects that dialogue had in building trust in the mining industry, which, in turn, predicted increased acceptance of mining. The findings support previous research in indicating that fairness, trust, and acceptance are critical elements in social acceptance. The findings provide an empirical link between these factors and the quality of dialogue and of company-community relationships. These results have implications for future research on social licence and the development of engagement strategies that seek to foster community and broader social acceptance.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Journal of Cleaner Production	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.291	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Environmental Sciences	en_US
dc.title	Company-community dialogue builds relationships, fairness, and trust leading to social acceptance of Australian mining developments	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	184	en_US
utslib.for	0914 Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy	en_US
utslib.for	1608 Sociology	en_US
utslib.for	0907 Environmental Engineering	en_US
utslib.for	0910 Manufacturing Engineering	en_US
utslib.for	0915 Interdisciplinary Engineering	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Science
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	184	en_US

Abstract:

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Social licence to operate has become an integral part of the discourse around social accountability for mining globally. Meaningful engagement between companies and communities has been proposed as a foundation for relationships that support a social licence. The links among these elements are investigated in the present research, which developed and tested a model exploring correlations between one such engagement mechanism, dialogue, and company-community relationships. It also considered other critical elements of social licence, including procedural fairness, trust, and social acceptance of mining. Survey participants (N = 560) were Australians living close to mining or natural gas development across 11 non-metropolitan regions in Australia. Path analyses showed that the more positive community members’ experiences of dialogue were, the stronger their relationships with company personnel and the more they perceived that the procedures used by the mining industry were fair. These factors, fairness and relationships, mediated the significant indirect effects that dialogue had in building trust in the mining industry, which, in turn, predicted increased acceptance of mining. The findings support previous research in indicating that fairness, trust, and acceptance are critical elements in social acceptance. The findings provide an empirical link between these factors and the quality of dialogue and of company-community relationships. These results have implications for future research on social licence and the development of engagement strategies that seek to foster community and broader social acceptance.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/131705