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Report n°2: An integrated approach to economic and social contestability in business

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Acquiring an ideal location and exposure to challenging vigilance

A location for the established recycling operator that is ideal from the upstream and downstream markets points of view is not without its disadvantages. Such a location is likely to be near a residential area, with occupants sensitive to the neighbourhood nuisance the recycling activity causes. They will treat it with challenging vigilance. After a few incidents and some experience of different types of nuisance, vigilance quickly changes to mistrust of an industrialist that the residents doubt is capable of considering "anyone's interest except his own". Because of the significant advantages that accrue from the particular location, the recycling operator is forced to maintain as far as he can a good neighbourly relationship with the residents, and to take the growth in opposition seriously. The recycling plant is exposed because of its assets, and must therefore anticipate the possible development of a latent form of contestation into a more definite manifestation. In other words, the need to possess assets in a particular location de facto implies exposure to the threat of neighbourhood social contestation. The dynamics leading to active social contestation from actors not taking part to the economic exchange in the branch may be triggered by an inability to adequately manage the economics stakes the branch is facing.

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