Sport horse welfare and social licence to operate: Informing a social licence to operate communication framework: Attitudes to sport horse welfare
Creators: name: Fiedler, Julie M
Publisher: name: Central Queensland University
Year: 2020
Subjects: Communication
Horse
Animal welfare
Social licence

description: Social media platforms potentially showcase horse sports to naïve audiences. Negative discourses may be triggered when the public perceive possible threats to horse welfare, resulting in questions about horse sport organisations’ capacity to manage animal welfare transparently. The public may raise questions about an organisation’s social licence to operate (SLO), the informal, unwritten level of acceptance or approval by stakeholders of organisations and their operations. SLO, a concept well known in business and mining sectors but not yet in the horse world, sits ‘within’ the community, and sport cannot ‘un-own’ disapproving public sentiment. Ultimately this informal, unwritten licence may be withdrawn, and the organisation may fail. Advocates for the horse’s welfare or ‘voices for the horse’ arise from inside and outside the organisation, from fans, people who watch sport but are not fans, and horse enthusiasts and other stakeholders, including researchers; however, the primary advocate for the non-human athlete, the horse, is the human athlete. However, contemporary society is impacted by disruptive technologies, where the hierarchal, institutional-style organisations are being challenged by Internet-enabled users’ preferences for flatter, devolved ways of doing business. In the context of horse sport, this is realised particularly in sport-to-public communication undertaken by every participant with a smartphone. As the primary interface with the public about horse welfare, sport participant messaging may or may not align with the organisation’s corporate communication on the same topic. The societal discourse about animal welfare is also evolving, transitioning from the ‘Five Freedoms’ towards the ‘Five Domains Animal Welfare Assessment Model’ (5D). The 5D provisions provide a list of welfare-centric words, or a welfare-centric vocabulary, which help describe positive or negative experiences for an animal, which will develop further over time, as animal welfare continues to be a progressive field of research. To inform an organisational communication framework addressing SLO, this mixed-method study investigated participants’ attitudes towards welfare, and whether these attitudes align with the contemporary Five Domains Animal Welfare Assessment Model. The method included a Likert-like survey, distributed by a national Australian horse sports organisation, which questioned respondents about their attitudes to horse welfare and asked the open question ‘Horse welfare is…?’ From a potential field of 1600 organisation members, 107 survey returns were received, (response rate of 7%), identifying variously as professionals (gaining income from horses (22.22%, n=18), or as amateurs (gaining no income from horses) (77.78%, n=63), with a mean age of 52 (range, 21 to 72). ANOVA analysis revealed that females (p &lt; 0.05) were more likely than males to listen to and act on welfare messages from an organisation. Amateurs (p &lt; 0.05) were more likely than professionals to agree that scientific researchers provide the lead when building new knowledge about welfare, while professionals (p &lt; 0.05) were more likely than amateurs to agree that they contributed to building new knowledge about welfare. There was little evidence of knowledge of the 5D in the open question responses, analysed through direct word matching. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, in order to further explore ideas about sport, welfare and SLO.Subsequent to the primary study, an opportunity arose to collect data pre- and post- a horse industry professional development event hosted by the non-profit organisation Horse SA. Themed on sport horse welfare and SLO, participants completed an online survey which included the open question ‘Horse welfare is…?’ Analysis revealed no data of statistical significance; however, we discussed the observation relating to results which indicated that there was less confidence amongst participants postevent when talking to others about welfare. Our result aligns with findings from another similar small study and further research is warranted. The results from this study will inform a communication framework for organisations addressing SLO. Further studies which examine options for providing sport participants with a more pertinent welfare-centric vocabulary are warranted. In addition, we recommend further research which investigates integration of horse welfare strategies with communication frameworks, where the process involves engaging sport participants in a meaningful way.