Publications

Oil and gas companies in Indonesia face considerable internal and external challenges in developing relationships with project stakeholders. Companies can manage these challenges by developing a Social Management Plan to provide a structured framework for the management of stakeholder relationships.A Social Management Plan is designed to provide a mechanism whereby stakeholder concerns receive adequate attention from appropriate levels of management. While regional autonomy and freedom of speech are creating a new and challenging environment in which companies must operate, internal challenges also present significant barriers to good social management. In fact, it is the internal processes that require most thought and planning in the design of the social management plan. The external processes, namely engagement with stakeholder, is much simpler and requires mostly application of common sense.A social management plan focuses on closing the gap that often exists between stakeholders and company decision-makers. Interestingly, this gap most often exists within the company rather than between the company and stakeholders. In most cases, field liaison officers have relatively good communication channels with stakeholders. However, the communication channels between the field officers and senior management are somewhat undefined.