What makes stakeholder engagement in social licence “meaningful”? Practitioners’ conceptualisations of dialogue

Mercer-Mapstone, LD; Rifkin, W; Moffat, K; Louis, W

What makes stakeholder engagement in social licence “meaningful”? Practitioners’ conceptualisations of dialogue

Mercer-Mapstone, LD

Rifkin, W Moffat, K Louis, W

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Rural Society, 2018, 27 (1), pp. 1 - 17
Issue Date:: 2018-01-02

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Mercer-Mapstone, LD https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7441-6568	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Rifkin, W	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Moffat, K	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Louis, W	en_US
dc.date.issued	2018-01-02	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Rural Society, 2018, 27 (1), pp. 1 - 17	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1037-1656	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/131716
dc.description.abstract	© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Social licence to operate (SLO) acknowledges the need for extractive industries to move beyond regulatory requirements into social accountability, which requires engagement between companies and their stakeholders. Engagement efforts point to dialogue as being integral for increasing the inclusivity of, for example, land-use decision-making in rural governance. Since little research explores what constitutes “constructive dialogue”, this research empirically explored how dialogue is conceptualised by expert engagement practitioners in SLO. Practitioners conceptualised constructive dialogue as both a threshold for, and an indicator of, social licence. This finding aligns with academic theorisation of dialogue wherein dialogue represents a collaborative form of engagement core to the development of SLO. Practitioners suggested dialogue is most commonly, and potentially problematically, operationalised as a goal-oriented process, aligning with previous work suggesting a “spectrum of dialogue” from strategic to learning-oriented. Contextual realities, such as time and costs, define where implemented dialogue practice ultimately falls. Analysis of practitioners’ views suggests industry and academia may consider future engagement practice and research in light of the centrality of reciprocal dialogic processes for increasing the inclusivity of SLO processes.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Rural Society	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/10371656.2018.1446301	en_US
dc.title	What makes stakeholder engagement in social licence “meaningful”? Practitioners’ conceptualisations of dialogue	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	1	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	27	en_US
utslib.for	0701 Agriculture, Land and Farm Management	en_US
utslib.for	1608 Sociology	en_US
utslib.for	07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences	en_US
utslib.for	16 Studies in Human Society	en_US
utslib.for	20 Language, Communication and Culture	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.issue	1	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	27	en_US

Abstract:

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Social licence to operate (SLO) acknowledges the need for extractive industries to move beyond regulatory requirements into social accountability, which requires engagement between companies and their stakeholders. Engagement efforts point to dialogue as being integral for increasing the inclusivity of, for example, land-use decision-making in rural governance. Since little research explores what constitutes “constructive dialogue”, this research empirically explored how dialogue is conceptualised by expert engagement practitioners in SLO. Practitioners conceptualised constructive dialogue as both a threshold for, and an indicator of, social licence. This finding aligns with academic theorisation of dialogue wherein dialogue represents a collaborative form of engagement core to the development of SLO. Practitioners suggested dialogue is most commonly, and potentially problematically, operationalised as a goal-oriented process, aligning with previous work suggesting a “spectrum of dialogue” from strategic to learning-oriented. Contextual realities, such as time and costs, define where implemented dialogue practice ultimately falls. Analysis of practitioners’ views suggests industry and academia may consider future engagement practice and research in light of the centrality of reciprocal dialogic processes for increasing the inclusivity of SLO processes.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/131716