Balanced policy tool and segmentation by motivation in situating potentially hazardous facilities

Purpose-In this study, we extend the discussion on accepting not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) facilities and reveal the genuine need for a versatile composition of residents in the vicinity. Only with fair segmentation of various types of residents can public policy balance the benefits among all segments and be tailored for each resident without creating a bias toward the residents who reject the NIMBY facilities most vehemently. Design/methodology/approach-Most of the previous studies on NIMBY-related issues have conducted gap analysis based on explicit demographic traits of local residents. However, an effective and holistic policy must pass through shallow claims and target the implicit desires of residents. In this study, cluster analysis, analysis of variance, regression, and classification analysis are conducted on 273 samples collected from residents of a typical industrial zone. Findings-Results indicate that portions of residents are highly sensitive to compensation, trust, and perceived risk, which implies the existence of multilevel requirements among the diverse composition of residents. Originality/value-In contrast to previous studies on segmentation by demographics, the current study segments similar residents based on discriminative characteristics of latent variables, which reflect the motivation traits of residents. Then, a balanced policy can equally emphasize each latent characteristic for each type of resident.