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Risky Business? On the Interplay Between Social, Actuarial and Political Risks and Licences

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Building New Bridges Between Business and Society

Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

Abstract

The concepts of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) and ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) have moved from obscurity to the business mainstream in recent years and indeed become cornerstones of many companies’ risk management strategies. Notwithstanding both concepts’ steep ascent, gaps in our understanding remain not only of their commonalities and differences but also of their politicality and conflicted nature.

Recent research on CSR and SLO in resource development contexts has highlighted the conflict potential between the political, social and actuarial risk dimensions that shape and define the CSR and SLO field. Especially in pro-development contexts where political primacy is given to economic and industry growth at the expense of often less tangible and visible social and environmental values this risk potential was found to be exacerbated.

Against this background, this paper engages previously established social and actuarial licences and introduces a third, political licence. Together, these three licenses not only define the CSR and SLO terrains but also help bring together both strands of theory. This triad of licences is placed within a dynamic risk framework that helps progress the CSR and SLO discourses from typical organisational risk management approaches and provides a more holistic conceptualisation of the field of licenses to be navigated and negotiated by all SLO/CSR stakeholders. This approach can serve as a foundation for critical research in the CSR and SLO space, enabling the analysis of, and discussion on, the meaning, intention and probable implications of the various, at times competing types of licences and explicating some of the conceptual weaknesses that have long plagued both scholarly fields.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For clarity, the acronym ‘SLO’ is used henceforth as a reference to SLO theory while the term ‘social licence to operate’ denotes the actual licence.

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Acknowledgements

Parts of this chapter have been published in Bice, S., Brueckner, M. & Pforr, C. (2017). Putting social license to operate on the map: A social, actuarial and political risk and licensing model (SAP model). Resources Policy 53: 46–55 and are reproduced here with permission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Responsible Citizenship and Sustainability, Murdoch University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Martin Brueckner

  2. Melbourne School of Government, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Sara Bice

  3. School of Marketing, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Christof Pforr

Authors
  1. Martin Brueckner
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  2. Sara Bice
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  3. Christof Pforr
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Correspondence to Martin Brueckner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sino-German Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Hualiang Lu

  2. Cologne Business School, Cologne, Germany

    René Schmidpeter

  3. College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

    Nicholas Capaldi

  4. International Training Centre of the IL, International Labor Organization, Turin, Italy

    Liangrong Zu

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Brueckner, M., Bice, S., Pforr, C. (2018). Risky Business? On the Interplay Between Social, Actuarial and Political Risks and Licences. In: Lu, H., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L. (eds) Building New Bridges Between Business and Society. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63561-3_3

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