近二十年的行为决策研究展现了出乎意表的应用价值,有效地帮助各级政府和各类组织制定和实施公共政策,继而更好地服务于社会大众。其独到之处在于:它既不必取道行政命令,也无需借助经济杠杆,而是通过提供简约且低成本的选择架构,使人们的行为朝着预期的方向改变。为顺应这一初显浩荡的世界潮流,中国心理学会决策心理学专业委员会拟组织国内外相关领域专家,于2016-2017年度在《心理科学进展》开设"以小拨大:行为决策助推社会发展"专栏。专栏旨在立足中国现状,集中报告既有用又有趣的行为决策研究发现,重点评介这些充满奇思妙想的发现在提升人民的健康、财富、幸福等领域可提供的"小"技法和可发挥的"大"作用,综述行为决策在公共政策管理领域的主要实践,以期鼓励中国的行为决策学者成为各级政府和各类组织重大决策的顾问,为推动社会发展发挥实实在在的作用。

Abstract Drawing on the social-psychological theory about justice, the current study uses survey data collected during a public engagement process related to nuclear energy to test the relative impact of perceptions about the fairness of outcomes, decision procedures, and interpersonal treatment in predicting both perceived favorability of a decision and willingness to accept a decision. Media use, interpersonal discussion, competence, and risk perceptions (worry) are used as control variables alongside standard demographics in hierarchical ordinary least squares regression models. The study finds that believing one receives a fair outcome is associated with decision favorability, while all forms of fairness perceptions are associated with acceptance. The implication is that perceptions about both outcome and nonoutcome forms of fairness are important to consider when assessing public engagement.

The ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) is an increasingly heard term that was originally coined to draw the attention of mining companies to stakeholder issues. Drawing on questions and comments voiced in 50 events attended by approximately 900 managers, consultants, academics and students, this article employs the rhetoric device of ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQs) to articulate conceptual and socio-political issues associated with the term. The first two of the six FAQs deal with the most novel contribution of the SLO concept, the idea that stakeholders have real power. The third and fourth FAQs deal with ethical and political issues about how stakeholders wield their power. The fifth FAQ looks at how to weight the diverse SLO levels granted by a non-cohesive stakeholder network. The sixth FAQ deals with confusion arising from the fact that both specific projects and whole industries can lose their SLO. The answers to the FAQs explore issues raised by the questions and identify (a) existing research that can illuminate the questions, and (b) latent questions that need further empirical research.

This paper aims to increase our understanding about existing capacity-building approaches and their implications for obtaining a social license to operate in the mining industry. The notion of apacity building is gaining increasing currency in the mining sector in developing countries due to a rapid rise in the globalisation of mining operations. Capacity-building is conceived here as a process that lasts after the mine-cycle, intended to provide local mining communities with tangible skills and knowledge to gain meaningful employment in mining or other industries relevant for the local economy. Building community capacity to understand and effectively respond to these transformations is vital for obtaining a social license to operate, as it promotes sustainable and locally relevant development. Accountability mechanisms such as global norms and international standards increasingly highlight the need to build capacity among stakeholders, particularly among local communities adjacent to mining operations. International frameworks and mining companies have embraced the notion of capacity-building as a driver to assist corporate social and operational performance. However, this narrow understanding of capacity-building through the prism of corporate social responsibility and est practice is preventing the industry from meaningfully impacting communities and maintaining a social license to operate. This latter notion is being widely embedded across multiple industry sectors, as a social and economic reward from mining companies to compensate communities for natural resource extraction and gain social acceptance.Although both concepts are widely recognised in the minerals industry, insufficient attention has been paid to the implications of applying a top-down (mining-orientated) or a bottom-up (community-orientated) capacity-building approach for obtaining a social license to operate, or indeed how these two concepts are linked and applied inpractice. At times, communities lack the necessary capacities in the form of education and skills to deal with mining-led livelihood transformations. This is preventing both mining companies and communities from forging sustainable livelihoods and responding to mining-led livelihood transformations, a situation that is creating discontent among communities and reducing the possibility of obtaining and renewing a social license to operate for the industry. Based on a review of current scholarly debates, accountability mechanisms in the mining industry and fieldwork findings in Colombia, this paper will contribute to an understanding of the implications of existing capacity-building approaches that support a social license to operate.

ABSTRACT Crown land is unique to the Commonwealth and better represented in British Columbia than anywhere else in the Commonwealth (95% of the land base). Through tradition and common law, British Columbians have come to define Crown lands as publicly owned lands that belong to all residents and to expect governments to shepherd them for the ben-efit of all. Social licence to operate on this land requires approval from the local community and other stakeholders. The concept of Crown land makes every British Columbian a po-tential stakeholder and has led to more drama and noise around social licence than occurs elsewhere. The four main reasons for failure in past applications for social licence have been a lack of respect, assuming economics is a sufficient framework, appearing to bully, and hiding or obscuring information deemed relevant. Recent events in the province sug-gest the provincial and federal governments, and some companies, have learned little from past failures. Energy development faces particular challenges because location counts and impacts are both intrusive and extensive, but the errors described here are avoidable. W. Edwards Deming reputedly observed, "Learning is not compulsory neither is survival." Some companies have learned. The topic is addressed under six headings: (1) Whose land is it?; (2) What the public has said; (3) Defining social licence; (4) Lessons from exploring social licence; (5) Lessons and energy development; and (6) What's next?

Nova Scotia has an aggressive energy strategy which if successful will result in 40% of electricity generated from renewable sources by 2020. A significant portion of this target, 100MW generating capacity, is to be met using large small-scale wind projects developed by community residents and cooperatives. The expected community participation prompts a renewed interest in, and importance of social acceptance of wind power development. This paper identifies important criteria that should be considered relating to community consultation and essential components for the development of consultation guidelines, which will ultimately impact social acceptance of community scale renewable energy projects.

Abstract Sustainability science has grown as a field of inquiry, but has said little about the role of large-scale private sector actors in socio-ecological systems change. However, the shaping of global trends and transitions depends greatly on the private sector and its development impact. Market-based and command-and-control policy instruments have, along with corporate citizenship, been the predominant means for bringing sustainable development priorities into private sector decision-making. This research identifies conflict as a further means through which environmental and social risks are translated into business costs and decision making. Through in-depth interviews with finance, legal, and sustainability professionals in the extractive industries, and empirical case analysis of 50 projects worldwide, this research reports on the financial value at stake when conflict erupts with local communities. Over the past decade, high commodity prices have fueled the expansion of mining and hydrocarbon extraction. These developments profoundly transform environments, communities, and economies, and frequently generate social conflict. Our analysis shows that mining and hydrocarbon companies fail to factor in the full scale of the costs of conflict. For example, as a result of conflict, a major, world-class mining project with capital expenditure of between US$3 and US$5 billion was reported to suffer roughly US$20 million per week of delayed production in net present value terms. Clear analysis of the costs of conflict provides sustainability professionals with a strengthened basis to influence corporate decision making, particularly when linked to corporate values. Perverse outcomes of overemphasizing a cost analysis are also discussed.

This paper discusses the discounted utility (DU) model: its historical development, underlying assumptions, and "anomalies" - the empirical regularities that are inconsistent with its theoretical predictions. We then summarize the alternate theoretical formulations that have been advanced to address these anomalies. We also review three decades of empirical research on intertemporal choice, and discuss reasons for the spectacular variation in implicit discount rates across studies. Throughout the paper, we stress the importance of distinguishing time preference, per se, from many other considerations that also influence intertemporal choices.

Although there is a small but growing body of literature on how people make risky decisions for others and predict others' decisions, results seem to be contradictory. The authors contribute to the understanding of these mixed results by investigating how depression affects self ther discrepancies in decision making and the psychological processes that underlie these discrepancies. In an experiment, depressed and nondepressed individuals read a series of scenarios involving decisions about health, money, and interpersonal relationships. They then indicated which of two options they would choose for themselves or for another person, or predicted which option this person would choose for himself or herself. Finally, participants reported benefits and drawbacks of the decisions (i.e., cognitions) and feelings about risk. Depressed individuals were less prone to bias when they predicted others' decisions than nondepressed individuals. Feelings about risk played a key role in determining the direction and the magnitude of this bias. In contrast, both depressed and nondepressed individuals showed bias when they made decisions for others. This bias affected their decisions in opposing ways and was determined by cognitions. This bias is consistent with literature showing that depression is associated with an increased sensitivity to social risks. The authors provide a theoretical explanation of self ther discrepancies in decision making in depressed and nondepressed individuals and conclude that the results support the assumption that depression is associated with psychological processes whose role is to increase sensitivity to social threats rather than with a more general negative bias in cognitive functioning

Abstract This article examines the concept of the corporate “social license,” which governs the extent to which a corporation is constrained to meet societal expectations and avoid activities that societies (or influential elements within them) deem unacceptable, whether or not those expectations are embodied in law. It examines the social license empirically, as it relates to one social problem–environmental protection–and as it relates to one particular industry: pulp and paper manufacturing. It shows try the social license is important, the circumstances in which it may encourage companies to go “beyond compliance” with regulation, how its terms are monitored and enforced, and how it interacts with what we term the regulatory and economic licenses. Overall, this research demonstrates that corporate environmental behavior cannot be explained purely in terms of instrumental threats and moral obligations to comply with the law, and that the increasing incidence of “beyond compliance” corporate behavior can be better explained in terms of the interplay between social pressures and economic constraints.

Local acceptance of wind energy technology has become an important factor to consider when designing local and national wind energy technological innovation policies. Previous studies have investigated the factors that shape the local acceptance of wind power in high-income countries. However, to the best of our knowledge, these factors had not been investigated in China. Utilizing a survey and quantitative analysis, we have identified the factors that are correlated with local acceptance of wind power in China. We conducted our study in the city of Jiuquan, Gansu Province, which currently possesses the largest installed capacity for wind power generation in China. Two factors, namely, perceived economic benefits and perceived environmental costs, influence local acceptance of wind power in China most significantly. Local acceptance of wind power in China can be described as “not in my backyard, but not far away from me”. In other words, the acceptance rate is lowest when the source of wind power is located in their village or community, highest when the project is located in their county and city and decreases for projects that are constructed further away.

Social Licence to Operate is a concept from the mining industry that reflects the ongoing acceptance or approval for a development granted by local stakeholders. It is now being applied by wind farm developers. Using the Australian wind industry as a case study, this discourse analysis examined how Social Licence to Operate is perceived and operationalised, and the key themes in this conceptual and applied discourse. Discourse analysis acknowledges that language choices are not accidental and discourse reflects power relationships. The wind industry representatives interviewed considered power over the Social Licence to Operate was shared with community stakeholders. They recognised the stakeholders' power to delay or prevent projects, but rejected the notion that every stakeholder group should have veto power. Social Licence to Operate is seen by the wind industry through a business-oriented perspective, with an emphasis on business risk, and they describe the opposition to wind farms by invoking a metaphor of "battle". The industry respondents described Social Licence to Operate as incorporating the values of trust, transparency and participation hich all contribute to creating "authentic" relationships. These findings can inform Social Licence to Operate research, engagement practices, and also encourage reflection by industry representatives on their implicit intentions for stakeholder engagement.

In the past decade the extractive sector has embraced social responsibility, and more recently extractive companies have extended this to include contributions to social development. A growing number of industry-sponsored, consultancy and academic publications describe how the sector can contribute to the economic and social development of host communities. However, despite its good intentions and frequent focus on confronting issues, the social development approach is fundamentally flawed. It frequently fails to communicate to intended audiences and it asks extractive companies to adopt policies, such as ‘contributing to reducing poverty’, which do not sit comfortably with the remit, capabilities and business imperatives of the extractive sector. This article argues that the approach encourages company priorities and behaviours which blur appropriate boundaries between firms, governments and communities; and may lead to unintended consequences which ultimately result in poorer community outcomes, and thence dilution of the ‘social licence’ eagerly sought. An argument is made for limiting social development ‘outreach’ and focusing more on ‘in-reach’, whereby extractive companies prioritise activities aimed at behavioural (and consequently, attitudinal) change across the whole of their organisation to secure trust and support from host communities.

We provide direct empirical evidence in support of instrumental stakeholder theory's argument that increasing stakeholder support enhances the financial valuation of a firm, holding constant the objective valuation of the physical assets under its control. We undertake this analysis using panel data on 26 gold mines owned by 19 publicly traded firms over the period 1993–2008. We code over 50,000 stakeholder events from media reports to develop an index of the degree of stakeholder conflict/cooperation for these mines. By incorporating this index in a market capitalization analysis, we reduce the discount placed by financial markets on the net present value of the physical assets controlled by these firms from 72 percent to between 37 and 13 percent . Copyright 08 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Much of the literature on mining in Papua New Guinea is concerned with the politics of landowner compensation. In the case of the Ok Tedi mine, attention has focused largely on claims for downstream ecological damage and the ensuing settlement on behalf of people living along the Lower Ok Tedi. Like all major mines, however, Ok Tedi has produced a series of large-scale ripple effects throughout the surrounding region, both downstream and upstream. In this article I explore two decades of mine-related transformations among Telefolmin, one of several groups of Min people who are a major source of labor for the Ok Tedi mine. I argue that Ok Tedi provides Telefolmin with the ability to realize a particular form of modernity. For Telefolmin, however, this modernity is rendered insecure by their hinterland status and the prospect of mine closure, sharpening fears that the Telefol experience of modernity may be a fleeting one.

This research engages with the problem of company–community conflict in mining. The inequitable distributions of risks, impacts, and benefits are key drivers of resource conflicts and are likely to remain at the forefront of mining-related research and advocacy. Procedural and interactional forms of justice therefore lie at the very heart of some of the real and ongoing challenges in mining, including: intractable local-level conflict; emerging global norms and performance standards; and ever-increasing expectations for the industry to translate high-level corporate social responsibility policy into on-the-ground practice. This research focuses on the “process” aspects of resource conflicts through an examination of existing grievance-handling procedures at six mining operations where company–community conflict was present. In their current form, and on their own, the six mechanisms were found to be insufficient in their capacity to advance justice. The authors argue that if the overall objective of global norms is that companies construct and perform grievance handling in ways that strongly preference just practices, then “mechanisms-in-practice” must be better understood and constructively critiqued along all justice dimensions.

This paper addresses the question of whether culture and language in Singapore affect the interpretation of sexual harassment; that is, whether speakers from a different language and ethnic background will interpret the discourse domain of sexual harassment differently. Three studies constitute this research. The first study investigates whether certain cues relating to sexual harassment are judged equivalently across the ethnic groups. The second study examines how verbal space is conceptualized and ruled by the use of different languages used by different ethnic groups. The third study explores whether English, as a medium of communication, is a low-context language. Results show that different ethnic groups perceived the cues differently; that ethnicity affects the interpretation of a single English phrase; and that English as used by Singaporeans is a high-context language, which complicates the understanding of victims coping responses.

On May 12, 2008, an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan, China, leading to 69,227 deaths and 374,643 injured, with 17,923 listed as missing as of Sept. 25, 2008, and shook the whole nation. We assessed the devastating effects on people's post-earthquake concern about safety and health. From June 4 to July 15, 2008, we surveyed a convenience sample of 2,262 adults on their post-earthquake concern about safety and health. Residents in non-devastated areas (Fujian and Hunan Provinces, and Beijing) and devastated areas (Sichuan and Gansu Provinces) responded to a questionnaire of 5 questions regarding safety measures, epidemic disease, medical workers, psychological workers, and medication. The ANOVAs showed a significant effect of residential devastation level on the estimated number of safety measures needed, the estimated probability of the outbreak of an epidemic, and the estimated number of medical and psychological workers needed (Ps<0.001). The post-earthquake concern decreased significantly as the level of residential devastation increased. Because of the similarity with the meteorological phenomenon of the eye of a typhoon, we dubbed these findings a “Psychological Typhoon Eye”: the closer to the center of the devastated areas, the less the concern about safety and health a resident felt. Contrary to common perception and ripple effect that the impact of an unfortunate event decays gradually as ripples spread outward from a center, a “Psychological Typhoon Eye” effect was observed where the post-earthquake concern was at its lowest level in the extremely devastated areas. The resultant findings may have implications for Chinese governmental strategies for putting “psychological comfort” into effect.

Traditional forms of regulation have been criticized for not adequately protecting the environment. Indeed, there is evidence and growing support for the view that societal pressure can act as a social licence which induces 'beyond compliance' behaviour. In exploring this view, the paper (a) outlines the characteristics of the social licence; (b) assesses how these characteristics can influence the environmental behaviour of small and medium enterprises; (c) presents a model which shows that social licence pressures depend on the interplay of a range of factors; and (d) applies the model to explain why societal pressures rarely induce beyond compliance environmental behaviour among small and medium enterprises.

ABSTRACT 148 Ss were asked to rate the hazard they perceived to be associated with living near 7 different types of public facilities (i.e., nuclear reactor, oil refinery, airport, gas works, prison, district heating facility, and mental hospital). Two respondent groups lived .5 km and 1.4 km from a nuclear research reactor, 2 groups lived at similar distances from a district heating facility, and the control group lived about 10 km from both facilities. Statistically significant differences were found with respect to the item "nuclear reactor," with the group living 1.4 km from the reactor perceiving it to be riskier than the nearer group and the controls, suggesting that frequent contact with potentially threatening objects reduces the perceived hazard. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Abstract Changing societal expectations have influenced the way industries involved in the development or extraction of natural resources conduct their operations around the world. Increasingly, communities are demanding more involvement in decision-making around such operations, have expectations of receiving a greater share of the benefits from these operations and require assurances that the industries involved are appropriately regulated. The combination of increasing pressures on industry performance and the associated societal acceptance of such operations has been described as the ocial licence to operate . In many ways, the social licence reflects the evolving nature of the relationships between industries and their communities and other stakeholders. Originally used to describe the social acceptability of mining operations, the term has since been applied to explore the broad acceptance that communities and other stakeholders provide to the activities of the forest, agriculture and energy sectors. This article presents a critical review of the emergence of the concept in industry practice over the last two decades. Recent applied research to measure and model the social licence is also examined to demonstrate how the roles of trust, fairness and governance may underpin the development of more sustainable, trust-based relationships between industry and society.

ABSTRACT Social License to Operate continues to emerge as a paradigm fundamental to sustainable mineral resources development. It relates to a set of concepts, values, tools, and best practices that represent the view of reality held by each participant (industry and stakeholders). It enables a forum for negotiation through which all parties involved are heard, understood and respected. The exploration phase of the mine life cycle is generally the initial contact with local communities and forms the cornerstone for effective communication and trust building. This paper presents the development of a mineral exploration template, based on field studies, aimed at assisting exploration personnel to establish effective communications and engagement with local communities within a process to build a Social License. The template aims to provide practical assistance in conducting situational analysis – a process of examining and mapping a situation, its elements and their relations - in order to acquire knowledge and understanding of a project, locale and region. Situational analysis is the ‘full situation of inquiry’, going beyond just ‘knowing the subject’ to being fully situated. It forms the initial foundation for a planning process presented in the paper that prepares for a strategy of initial engagement and consultation.

In 1988, Owen Furuseth and Mark Johnson studied neighbourhood attitudes toward a sanitary landfill site in North Carolina, USA. Surveying residents who lived within 4800 m of the site, they found a strong measure of satisfaction among them regarding the operation of the facility. Since this study was published, there have been no known studies that have attempted to utilize the same approach to investigate the perceptions of nearby residents regarding the impacts of landfills in their community, especially those whose siting process they unsuccessfully opposed. Following the same approach used by Furuseth and Johnson, this study investigated the perceptions of nearby residents regarding the impacts of Halton landfill in Ontario, Canada. It reports that although the residents fought against the siting of the facility, once it had been in operation for a few years, they were only little concerned about most of the anticipated effects, which had formed the basis for their fears and opposition during the proposal stage. Similar to the results obtained by Furuseth and Johnson, operational, traffic and psychological impacts posed the least concerns to the residents, while environmental and economic impacts posed the highest concerns. Also, some of the impacts as perceived by residents appear to be influenced by distance.

This review article offers a critique of the social license concept, and of the debate surrounding it. In order to best understand what is meant by “social license”, one must look beyond its constituent terminology and instead examine the core drivers of contemporary mining practice. The working assumption inside the industry is that if disapproval becomes too intense there is a chance that members of the community will interrupt mining activities. This is what I refer to as ‘the fear of Mineras Interruptus’. If there is any meaning to attribute to the term ‘social license to operate’ – it is to be found in the fear of losing access – because other factors relating to social performance or benefits are considered peripheral. The author argues that the mining industry’s adoption and application of the concept should be viewed critically and not promoted on face value.

78 Social licence provides limited utility where sensitivity to CSR and mining is considered low. 78 Social licence as currently applied at odds with the objectives of sustainable development. 78 Social licence de-prioritises company led engagement on core development issues.

In both organizational and social arenas, individuals make decisions for themselves and for other individuals. But research in decision making has provided little input into whether or how these decisions are psychologically different. In this paper, I propose that decisions—depending on whom they are for—vary according to the extent of information distortion, such that, individuals who choose for themselves demonstrate more postdecisional distortion, yet less predecisional distortion than individuals who choose on behalf of others. To test this hypothesis, participants in an experiment made a decision between two restaurants. Attributes about each restaurant were presented sequentially, and preferences were measured following each attribute. As expected, participants who chose for themselves experienced more postdecisional distortion. However, among participants who chose on behalf of others, greater distortion of predecisional attribute information was observed. These findings shed light on the differences in self-other decision making, as well as on research concerning information distortion.

Abstract A growing stream of research is investigating how choices people make for themselves are different from choices people make for others. In this paper, I propose that these choices vary according to regulatory focus, such that people who make choices for themselves are prevention focused, whereas people who make choices for others are promotion focused. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, in particular work on errors of omission and commission, I hypothesize that people who make choices for others experience a reversal of the choice overload effect. In 6 studies, including a field study, I found that people who make choices for themselves are less satisfied after selecting among many options compared to few options, yet, people who make choices for others are more satisfied after selecting among many options compared to few options. Implications and suggestions for other differences in self-other decision making are discussed.

The relationship between people and places is characterized by affective and cognitive dimensions, defined, respectively, as place attachment and identification. This paper aims at clarifying differences between place attachment and identification by (1) identifying their predictors in a structural equation model and (2) exploring their association with the environmental perception. To this purpose, we conducted a research on a sample of 328 residents of a city in the north of Italy. Results show that the affective and the cognitive dimensions (1) are directly predicted by different demographical and psychosocial variables and (2) are strictly associated to the perception of the place and its inhabitants. Place attachment and identification are two distinct but correlated components. Semantic contents related to the environmental perception are described in respect to different levels of attachment and identification.

No abstract is available for this item.

A previously unobserved pattern of choice behavior is predicted and corroborated. In line with the principle of compatibility, according to which the weighting of inputs is enhanced by their compatibility with output, the positive and negative dimensions of options (their pros and cons) are expected to loom larger when one is choosing and when one is rejecting, respectively. Subjects are presented with pairs of options, one of which—the enriched option—has more positive as well as more negative dimensions than does the other, impoverished , option. Because positive dimensions are weighted more heavily in choosing than in rejecting, and negative dimensions are weighted more heavily in rejecting than in choosing, the enriched option tends to be chosen and rejected relatively more often than the impoverished option. These findings are extended to nonbinary decision problems, and their implications for the rational theory of choice and for everyday decisions are discussed.

ABSTRACT Sense-of-place writings have proliferated in recent years, yet research suffers from a relative lack of construct clarity and hypothesis testing. This research presents a model of sense of place based in conventional social psychology: cognitions, attitudes, identities, and behavioral intentions located in and fundamentally about place. A survey of property owners in Vilas County, Wisconsin, revealed the importance of symbolic meanings as underpinning both place satisfaction, conceptualized as an attitude toward a setting, and attachment, conceptualized as personal identification with a setting. In turn, attachment, satisfaction, and meanings all have independent effects on willingness to engage in behaviors that maintain or enhance valued attributes of the setting.

In two studies, we examined people's level of risk taking when making monetary decisions for other people rather than for themselves. Experiment 1 examined the role of regret in these situations; results show that regret concerns led to increased risk avoidance both when participants made decisions for other people as well as when making decisions for themselves. Experiment 2 tested whether skill tasks would lead to greater risk avoidance when the decision was for another person versus for oneself. This hypothesis was not supported, although men were more risk seeking than were women in both situations. Taken together, these studies suggest that many of the findings from risk research on individual decision making regarding financial situations generalize to decision making for others.

The ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) is an increasingly heard term that was originally coined to draw the attention of mining companies to stakeholder issues. Drawing on questions and comments voiced in 50 events attended by approximately 900 managers, consultants, academics and students, this article employs the rhetoric device of ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQs) to articulate conceptual... [Show full abstract]

Abstract A review of recent research demonstrates that people are more willing to accept decisions when they feel that those decisions are made through decision-making procedures they view as fair. Studies of procedural justice judgements further suggest that people evaluate fairness primarily through criteria that can be provided to all the parties to a conflict: whether there are opportunities to participate; whether the authorities are neutral; the degree to which people trust the motives of the authorities; and whether people are treated with dignity and respect during the process. These findings are optimistic and suggest that authorities have considerable ability to bridge differences and interests and values through the use of fair decision-making procedures. The limits to the effectiveness of such procedural approaches are also outlined. Une recension des recherches recentes montre que les gens sont prets a accepter des decisions quand ils sentent que ces decisions sont prises a la suite d'une procedure decisionnelle qu'ils considerent equitable. De plus, les etudes sur les jugements dans les procedure judiciaires suggerent que les gens evaluent l'equite prioritairement sur la base des criteres fournies a toutes les parties en conflit: possibilites de participation: neutralite des autorites; confiance dans les motifs des autorites; et procedure qui traite les personnes avec dignite et respect. Ces resultats optimistes suggerent que les autorites peuvent, par des procedures equitables de prise de decision, concilier des differences, des interets et des valeurs. Les limites a l'efficacite de ces approches procedurales sont aussi soulignees.

Abstract To improve the understanding of environmental concern, considering the context within which individuals develop environmental concerns may be important. One salient contextual variable related to local environmental issues is place attachment, which deals with human bonding to a specific physical environment. In a study in a rural community in Norway, the local attitudes toward a proposal of a major hydropower development, which will cause major environmental impacts, were examined in relation to sociodemographic variables and place attachment. The results from a postal survey show that place attachment explained more of the variances in attitudes than the sociodemographic variables all together.

Understanding urbanization and evaluating its impact are vital for formulating global sustainable development. The results obtained from evaluating the impact of urbanization, however, depend on the kind of measurement used. With the goal of increasing our understanding of the impact of urbanization, we developed direct and indirect subjective indicators to measure how people assess their living situation. The survey revealed that the projected endorsements and perceived social ambiance of people toward living in different types of settlements did not improve along with the urbanization level in China. The assessment scores from the city dwellers were not significantly different from those from the country areas and, more surprisingly, both were significantly higher than the assessment scores of the town dwellers, which we had expected to fall between the assessment scores of the country and city dwellers. Instead their scores were the lowest. We dubbed this V-shaped relationship the own dislocation effect. When searching for a potential explanation for this effect, we found additional town dislocation effects in social support, loss aversion, and receptivity toward genetically modified food. Further analysis showed that only social support mediated the relationship between the three tiers of settlements (cities, country areas, and towns) and the subjective indicator. The projected endorsements yielded significant subjective assessments that could enhance our understanding of Chinese urbanization. Towns posed specific problems that require special attention.

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react-text: 374 Current approaches of measuring vulnerability to natural hazards generally use a rather static perspective that focuses on a single point in time?often before a hazardous event occurs. In contrast, the paper argues that vulnerability assessment should also take into account the changing dynamics during and after a disaster. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the situation in Sri... /react-text react-text: 375 /react-text [Show full abstract]

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is gaining support in the global business environment. Some companies are adopting a model, the Social License to Operate (SLO), as part of their CSR strategy. This paper provides background on the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility and Social License to Operate with examples supporting the business case for them. It proposes a process based on stakeholder theory for identifying and classifying stakeholders that divides stakeholders into two groups: vested and non-vested. Vested stakeholder groups have a vote in the awarding of a social license to operate, while non-vested stakeholder groups have only a voice. By using a process based on alignment of the norms and values of the company, and the stakeholder groups, social licenses to operate can be negotiated that can allow a company to succeed in different countries and cultures.

The disaster that struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan has reignited the international debate on the future of nuclear energy. Interestingly, the incident has been used to both justify nuclear power generation and reconsider past decisions made on established or planned nuclear power sites. Geographically removed from the radioactive fallout, Europe's response to the massive nuclear accident differed greatly among the member states. The UK and Germany stand out as examples of the wide spread of policy response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. In the UK, policy makers remained firm on their decision to increase nuclear power generation in the near future, whereas in Germany, the federal government decided to at least temporarily shut down the old generation of nuclear reactors and re-examine the safety of all national nuclear power facilities. Furthermore, a regional voter backlash, fuelled by resentment of the Merkel government's previous commitment to nuclear power, dealt a serious blow to the ruling coalition parties. How can national policy responses to the same event be so divergent in two European countries? This article attempts to answer this question in five arguments. I argue that in contrast to the UK, the German public faced imminent elections, stronger media reporting, increasing trust in renewable technologies, a history of nuclear resistance and a feeling of close cultural proximity to the Japanese.

react-text: 178 There is much existing knowledge about the factors that influence adoption of new practices in agriculture but few attempts have been made to construct predictive quantitative models of adoption for use by those planning agricultural research, development, extension and policy. ADOPT (Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool) is the result of such an attempt, providing predictions of a... /react-text react-text: 179 /react-text [Show full abstract]