IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i20p8441-d427417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Natural Language Processing Approach to Social License Management

Author

Listed:
  • Robert G. Boutilier

    (Stakeholder360, Cuernavaca 62810, Mexico)

  • Kyle Bahr

    (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-0845, Japan)

Abstract

Dealing with the social and political impacts of large complex projects requires monitoring and responding to concerns from an ever-evolving network of stakeholders. This paper describes the use of text analysis algorithms to identify stakeholders’ concerns across the project life cycle. The social license (SL) concept has been used to monitor the level of social acceptance of a project. That acceptance can be assessed from the texts produced by stakeholders on sources ranging from social media to personal interviews. The same texts also contain information on the substance of stakeholders’ concerns. Until recently, extracting that information necessitated manual coding by humans, which is a method that takes too long to be useful in time-sensitive projects. Using natural language processing algorithms, we designed a program that assesses the SL level and identifies stakeholders’ concerns in a few hours. To validate the program, we compared it to human coding of interview texts from a Bolivian mining project from 2009 to 2018. The program’s estimation of the annual average SL was significantly correlated with rating scale measures. The topics of concern identified by the program matched the most mentioned categories defined by human coders and identified the same temporal trends.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert G. Boutilier & Kyle Bahr, 2020. "A Natural Language Processing Approach to Social License Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-12, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:20:p:8441-:d:427417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8441/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8441/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Morrison, 2014. "The Social License," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-37072-3.
    2. Buah, Eric & Linnanen, Lassi & Wu, Huapeng, 2020. "Emotional responses to energy projects: A new method for modeling and prediction beyond self-reported emotion measure," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    3. Robert G. Boutilier & Michal Zdziarski, 2017. "Managing stakeholder networks for a social license to build," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(8-9), pages 498-513, September.
    4. John Morrison, 2014. "The social license," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Social License, chapter 0, pages 12-28, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Stephen Ward & Chris Chapman, 2008. "Stakeholders and uncertainty management in projects," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 563-577.
    6. Beatriz Muriel & Miguel Fernández Moscoso, 2014. "¿Es Posible Construir Beneficios Mutuos entre Comunidades y Empresas Mineras?: El Caso San Cristóbal," Development Research Working Paper Series 05/2014, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xinghua Liu & Qian Ye & Ye Li & Jing Fan & Yue Tao, 2021. "Examining Public Concerns and Attitudes toward Unfair Events Involving Elderly Travelers during the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Weibo Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-15, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Santiago, Ana Lúcia & Demajorovic, Jacques & Rossetto, Dennys Eduardo & Luke, Hanabeth, 2021. "Understanding the fundamentals of the Social Licence to Operate: Its evolution, current state of development and future avenues for research," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Boutilier, Robert G., 2020. "Narratives and networks model of the social licence," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    3. Camie Heleski & C. Jill Stowe & Julie Fiedler & Michael L. Peterson & Colleen Brady & Carissa Wickens & James N. MacLeod, 2020. "Thoroughbred Racehorse Welfare through the Lens of ‘Social License to Operate—With an Emphasis on a U.S. Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Misani, Nicola, 2020. "Sustainability and Implicit Contracts," MPRA Paper 104963, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. António Mateus & Luís Martins, 2021. "Building a mineral-based value chain in Europe: the balance between social acceptance and secure supply," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 34(2), pages 239-261, July.
    6. Stephens, Siân & Robinson, Bryan Michael Kenneth, 2021. "The social license to operate in the onshore wind energy industry: A comparative case study of Scotland and South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).
    7. Kathryn Tomlinson, 2017. "Oil and gas companies and the management of social and environmental impacts and issues: The evolution of the industry's approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-22, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Kathryn Tomlinson, 2017. "Oil and gas companies and the management of social and environmental impacts and issues: The evolution of the industry’s approach," WIDER Working Paper Series 022, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Frederiksen, Tomas, 2018. "Corporate social responsibility, risk and development in the mining industry," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 495-505.
    10. Geert Demuijnck & Björn Fasterling, 2016. "The Social License to Operate," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(4), pages 675-685, July.
    11. Leeuwerik, R.N.C. & Rozemeijer, M.J.C. & van Leeuwen, J., 2021. "Conceptualizing the interaction of context, process and status in the Social License to operate: The case of marine diamond mining in Namibia," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    12. Brueckner, Martin & Eabrasu, Marian, 2018. "Pinning down the social license to operate (SLO): The problem of normative complexity," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 217-226.
    13. Bice, Sara & Brueckner, Martin & Pforr, Christof, 2017. "Putting social license to operate on the map: A social, actuarial and political risk and licensing model (SAP Model)," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 46-55.
    14. Martha Fani Cahyandito, 2017. "The Effectiveness of Community Development and Environmental Protection Program in Oil and Gas Industry in Indonesia: Policy, Institutional, and Implementation Review," Journal of Management and Sustainability, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 7(1), pages 115-126, March.
    15. Debrah, Akua Asamoah & Mtegha, Hudson & Cawood, Frederick, 2018. "Social licence to operate and the granting of mineral rights in sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring tensions between communities, governments and multi-national mining companies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 95-103.
    16. Benjamin John Wiesner & Paul Dargusch, 2022. "The Social License to Restore—Perspectives on Community Involvement in Indonesian Peatland Restoration," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-15, July.
    17. Anna Katharina Provasnek & Anton Sentic & Erwin Schmid, 2017. "Integrating Eco‐Innovations and Stakeholder Engagement for Sustainable Development and a Social License to Operate," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(3), pages 173-185, May.
    18. Smits, Coco C.A. & van Leeuwen, Judith & van Tatenhove, Jan P.M., 2017. "Oil and gas development in Greenland: A social license to operate, trust and legitimacy in environmental governance," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 109-116.
    19. Federica Nieri & Luciano Ciravegna, 2019. "Investigating firms' involvement in corporate social irresponsibility: Are family owned MNEs better corporate citizens?," Discussion Papers 2019/254, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    20. Cesar Saenz, 2019. "Building legitimacy and trust between a mining company and a community to earn social license to operate: A Peruvian case study," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 296-306, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:20:p:8441-:d:427417. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.