An analysis of the community perceptions of well-being: Special reference to nickel mining and processing industry

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a measurement scale for the local community perceptions of community well-being (CWB) based on the presence of nickel mining activities in Indonesia.

Design/methodology/approach

The measurement uses the conceptual approach of CWB developed in Australia by Walton et al. (2014) and the multidimensional CWB model created by Kim and Lee (2014) in Korea, which applies social, economic, environmental, health, political and infrastructural dimensions. The basis of measurement in this study involves 490 communities living in neighborhoods where the nickel industry is located.

Findings

A six-dimensional scale of 29 items is proposed to measure CWB perceptions based on the presence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by the nickel mining and processing industry.

Research limitations/implications

Despite attempting to sum up the scale by associating it with the distinctive social settings created in this study, this work did not cost much in communicating these scales. The predictive validity of the scales needs to be corroborated by new studies related to CWB construction (measured by CWB scales) with other variables specified in the literature.

Practical implications

This paper presents complete scale development and can provide policies for governments, particularly in Indonesia. Moreover, the CWB scale might be utilized by different entities (e.g. NGOs, open experts and social group media) to determine the view of genuine clients regarding the association’s CSR execution.

Originality/value

Although CWB research has been done, the dimension and measurement scale of CWB in the area of recipient of the CSR program from the nickel mining and processing industry has not been studied in Indonesia. In addition, multivariate regression analysis has been frequently used for data analysis; the authors used SEM Smart-PLS as an alternative with paramount predictive accuracy.

Citation

Iskandar, Z.R., Awang, A.H. and Ramli, Z. (2019), "An analysis of the community perceptions of well-being: Special reference to nickel mining and processing industry", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 211-226. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-02-2018-0042