The Social License ― How to Keep Your Organization Legitimate

Business and government leaders need to understand how they gain, and how they might lose, legitimacy, in order to operate in the emerging economies and new forms of democracy of tomorrow.

Based on thirty years of first-hand experience, this distinctive and direct guide to legitimacy in business focuses on the new benchmark of a 'Social License to Operate'. Drawing on examples of what is and isn't working in the field of corporate responsibility, including BP in the Gulf of Mexico, Shell in Nigeria, the leadership of The Body Shop, and the economic opening of Burma, readers will be offered an insight to how the social license to operate is transforming power relationships.

John Morrison is a leading practitioner and thinker on issues relating to the social responsibilities of government, business, and civil society. He is currently the Executive Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Business (www.ihrb.org), and has advised a number of governments, the European Union, OECD, and the United Nations on related issues. Previously, John has worked in business, civil society, and government, and lived and worked in Europe and North America. He has been a Harkness Fellow, member of a number of advisory boards, and chaired the Jury of the Dutch Government's Human Rights Award in 2013. He has written and spoken widely on human rights, international migration, and corporate responsibility.