The social licence to operate is a notoriously ambiguous concept that encompasses a patent normative heterogeneity, making the emergence of a widely accepted standard capable of settling controversies on its legitimate use seem unlikely. To cope with this issue, the article builds a model (adapted from Arnstein’s ladder of public participation) to measure “contact quality,” used here as a proxy for gauging the legitimacy of the social licence to operate. This model is tested on a case study from the minerals and energy sector (Base Titanium Mine in Kenya). Our findings show that a company can move up and down on the legitimacy scale, depending on the contact quality with company stakeholders. The interest of providing a social licence heuristic is to make sense of the theoretical controversies surrounding this concept and to offer also realistic guidance to practitioners searching to understand where a firm sits on the legitimacy scale, to enhance transparency and accountability of its social licence to operate and ultimately improve business practice.

社会经营许可证是一个臭名昭著的模棱两可的概念，其中包含专利规范的异质性，因此似乎不太可能出现能够解决有关其合法使用的争​​议的广为接受的标准。为了解决这个问题，本文构建了一个模型（根据Arnstein的公众参与阶梯进行了调整）来衡量“联系质量”，在此用作衡量社会经营许可合法性的代理。该模型在矿产和能源部门（肯尼亚的Base Titanium Mine）的案例研究中进行了测试。我们的发现表明，公司可以根据与公司利益相关者的联系质量在合法性范围内上下浮动。