This research focuses on the main antecedent factors that influence the need for information regarding environmental hazards derived from the activity of corporations in a petrochemical complex.
Environmental hazards:
The article was written by the following Associate Professor at Jaume I University: Vicent Tortosa-Edo, Miguel Ángel López-Navarro and Jaume Llorens-Monzonís. This article is related to other articles as it focuses on the relationship between corporations (in a petrochemical complex) and society (represented by residents who live close to the analysed complex). In particular, the main variables are environmental beliefs, trust in companies, negative affective response and the need for information. The main contribution of the article is that empirically try to corroborate the antecedent role on the need of citizens for information of the aforementioned variables.
Abstract of the article:
Information transparency is a relevant factor nowadays. The current legislation
has forced hazardous companies to improve their communication policy with the
local community, but this entails the difficulty that each individual has a different
need for information. This study considers the main antecedents of need for
information to explain these differences.
The paper analyses, to our knowledge for the first time, the direct influence of personal beliefs about environmentalissues on the individual’s need for information. The research focused on the residents (992) of an area near to a petrochemical complex.
The results, derived from the structural equation modelling analysis, confirmed the influence of environmental beliefs, trust in companies and negative affective response on the need
for information. In the light of these results, we recommend that the companies of the complex develop a risk communication policy based on personal environmental beliefs, in order to understand the public’s concerns and their needs for risk information.
Finally, the analysed companies need to see risk communication as a long-term and ongoing process that involves active dialogue and enables stakeholders’ participation, with the aim of establishing a communication network.
This research article was published on the Journal of Risk Research, 19(2), pp.135-152.