Legitimacy and the Corporate Social License

This chapter discusses the key strategic issues underpinning the social license to operate. Important issues include the relevance of various sources of license authority, relevant substance of the social license, and the value of gaining the social license. The perspectives of social license contract and moral legitimacy are covered in this chapter alongside close analysis of corporate business trustworthiness, social license contract perspectives, moral legitimacy, and the intrinsic critical value of obtaining social license. The chapter concludes with an illustrative case study on controversial coal seam gas exploration in New South Wales, Australia.