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The concept of the ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) is contested on almost every imaginable dimension. Stakeholders may decry it as an industry-created ploy to ethics wash their operations and strategically manipulate community relations, while some industry figures despair over what they perceive as the arbitrary and even unilateral power that the weaponized concept of the social licence gifts to activists who seek to malign and disrupt law-abiding commercial operators. Others have lauded the social licence as a heaven-sent ethical tool, an effective lever for action that motivates leaders at profit-seeking enterprises to seriously consider ethical issues and prioritize community engagement. Still others will worry that a concept that can mean everything to everyone must ultimately mean nothing at all, and that the social licence is an empty and unhelpful buzzword. As the contributions to this Special Issue show, in different contexts – and sometimes even in the same context but for different stakeholders – all these views can be correct. From an ethical perspective, dangers, promises and irrelevance all attend the social licence.

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

This chapter examines the role of stakeholders, cocreation, and pro-environmental behaviors in Google’s efforts to reduce the environmental impact of their food waste. It describes several different strategies that the company undertook and the outcomes of those efforts. These efforts ranged from working with suppliers and employees to use food that was normally wasted to implementing a waste measuring and feedback system. The case highlights the challenges, current impact, and risks of the different strategies.

The chapter covers the theories and models of stakeholder influence on sustainability, new product development through cocreation, and pro-environmental behaviors; it applies these concepts to Google’s food waste program.

The results of the study contribute to the frameworks on cocreation and stakeholder management to include ideas for encouraging pro-environmental behavior through various social practices (measuring and monitoring waste, building supply chain partnerships, and cocreating new products with stakeholders).

The findings of this chapter will help other companies with ideas for successfully reducing food waste and its environmental impact by illustrating new ideas for engaging stakeholders in the supply chain.