Stakeholder engagement: the role of facilitators and gender in ‘opening up’ conversations and enabling participation

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Wade, Belinda
Bharadwaj, Bishal
Kambo, Amrita
Jensen, Mikayla
Witt, Katherine
Weder, Franzisca
Phelan, Anna Anya
Ashworth, Peta
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2024
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Abstract

A successful global transition to net-zero emissions requires complex transformational change involving stakeholders from across society. Traditionally, stakeholder engagement has been debated predominantly from a pragmatic, functionalist and instrumental perspective. Recent approaches in business communication, sustainability, energy and environmental management show that meaningful and ‘sustainable’ stakeholder engagement is helpful in maintaining an organisation’s social licence to operate. We problematise the notion of participation in deliberative processes and analyse whether the outcomes of an online Australian citizens’ panel are truly representative of all participants or whether specific cultural and demographic factors, particularly gender, influence participation, potentially shaping the outcome. The study shows how gender need to be considered and managed as part of a legitimate deliberation process. Applying Gastil’s input-process-outcome model as a framework, we examine the engagement achieved through deliberations conducted on Zoom. We focus on gender as a variable and the role of the facilitator in managing participation. The results suggest that participants’ contributions to discussions vary based on gender of both participants and facilitators. Based on findings, the challenges of achieving equality in participatory processes are identified. The facilitator’s role is re-defined as a curator of the stakeholder engagement processes, complementing existing theory on stakeholder participation and engagement.

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Australasian Journal of Environmental Management

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© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.

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Environmental sciences

Human society

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Wade, B; Bharadwaj, B; Kambo, A; Jensen, M; Witt, K; Weder, F; Phelan, AA; Ashworth, P, Stakeholder engagement: the role of facilitators and gender in ‘opening up’ conversations and enabling participation, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 2024

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