Medical interventions are usually categorized as “invasive” when they involve piercing the skin or inserting an object into the body. Beyond this standard definition, however, there is little discussion of the concept of invasiveness in the medical literature, despite evidence that the term is used in ways that do not reflect the standard definition of medical invasiveness. We interviewed psychiatrists, patients with depression, and members of the public without depression to better understand their views on the invasiveness of several psychiatric (...) electroceutical interventions (treatments that involve electrical or magnetic stimulation of the brain) for the treatment of depression. Our study shows that people recognize several kinds of invasiveness: physical, emotional, and lifestyle. In addition, several characteristics of therapies influence how invasive they are perceived to be; these include the perceived capacity of an intervention to result in harm; how localized the effects of the intervention are; the amount of control retained by the person receiving the intervention; how permanent its effects are perceived as being; and how familiar it seemed to participants. Our findings contribute to a small literature on the concept of invasiveness, which emphasizes that categorizing an intervention as invasive, or as noninvasive, evokes a variety of other normative considerations, including the potential harm it poses and how it compares to other potential therapies. It may also draw attention away from other salient features of the intervention. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has gained currency in the business and society literature in recent years in light␣of its practicality from the perspective of managers and scholars. In accounting for the recent ascendancy of␣stakeholder theory, this article presents an overview of␣two traditional conceptualizations of corporate social␣responsibility (CSR) (Carroll: 1979, ‹A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Performance', The Academy of Management Review 4(4), 497–505 and Wood: 1991, ‹Corporate Social Performance Revisited', The Academy of Management Review 16(4), 691–717), highlighting their predominant inclination toward providing (...) static taxonomic CSR descriptions. The article then makes the case for a stakeholder approach to CSR, reviewing its rationale and outlining how it has␣been integrated into recent empirical studies. In light of this review, the article adopts a stakeholder framework – the Ethical Performance Scorecard (EPS) proposed by Spiller (2000, ‹Ethical Business and Investment: A Model For Business and Society', Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149–160) – to examine the CSR approach of a sample of␣Lebanese and Syrian firms with an interest in CSR␣and␣test relevant hypotheses derived from the CSR/stakeholder literature. The findings are analyzed and implications drawn regarding the usefulness of a stakeholder approach to CSR. (shrink)

As a result of numerous, highly publicized, ethical breaches, firms and their agents are under ongoing scrutiny. In an attempt to improve both their image and their ethical performance, some firms have adopted ethical codes of conduct. Past research investigating the effects of ethical codes of conduct on behavior and ethical attitudes has yielded mixed results. In this study, we again take up the question of the effect of ethical codes on ethical attitudes and find strong evidence to suggest that (...) business professionals employed at firms with ethical codes of conduct are significantly less accepting of ethically questionable behavior toward most stakeholders. One notable exception relates to ethical actions toward customers. (shrink)

Stakeholder engagement has grown into a widely used yet often unclear construct in business and society research. The literature lacks a unified understanding of the essentials of stakeholder engagement, and the fragmented use of the stakeholder engagement construct challenges its development and legitimacy. The purpose of this article is to clarify the construct of stakeholder engagement to unfold the full potential of stakeholder engagement research. We conduct a literature review on 90 articles in leading academic journals focusing on stakeholder engagement (...) in the business and society, management and strategy, and environmental management and environmental policy literatures. We present a descriptive analysis of stakeholder engagement research for a 15-year period, and we identify the moral, strategic, and pragmatic components of stakeholder engagement as well as its aims, activities, and impacts. Moreover, we offer an inclusive stakeholder engagement definition and provide a guide to organizing the research. Finally, we complement the current understanding with a largely overlooked dark side of stakeholder engagement. We conclude with future research avenues for stakeholder engagement research. (shrink)

Aim: While there is widespread agreement on the broad aspects of what constitutes a biobank, there is much disagreement regarding the precise definition. This research aimed to describe and analyse the definitions of the term biobank offered by various stakeholders in biobanking. Methods: Interviews were conducted with 36 biobanking stakeholders with international experience currently working in Switzerland. Results: The results show that, in addition to the core concepts of biological samples and linked data, the planned use of samples (...) (including sharing) is held to be a key criterion. It also emerges that some researchers avoid the term in order to circumvent certain regulatory guidelines, including informed consent requirements. Conclusion: Developments in the field of biobanking will be complicated if researchers are unaware, or deny that their collection is a biobank. A clear definition of the term is therefore an important step towards fostering collaboration amongst researchers, enabling them to more easily identify potential sources of samples. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is widely recognized as a management theory, yet very little research has considered its implications for individual managerial decision-making. In the two studies reported here, we used stakeholder theory to examine managerial decisions about balancing stakeholder interests. Results of Study 1 suggest that indivisible resources and unequal levels of stakeholder saliency constrain managers’ efforts to balance stakeholder interests. Resource divisibility also influenced whether managers used a within-decision or an across-decision approach to balance stakeholder interests. In Study 2 we (...) examined instrumental and normative implications of these two approaches. We conclude by considering the contributions of this research. (shrink)

Objectives To analyse the perspective of clinical research stakeholders concerning post-trial access to study medication. Methods Questionnaires and informed consents were sent through e-mail to 599 ethics committee (EC) members, 290 clinical investigators (HIV/AIDS and Diabetes) and 53 sponsors in Brazil. Investigators were also asked to submit the questionnaire to their research patients. Two reminders were sent to participants. Results The response rate was 21%, 20% and 45% in EC, investigators and sponsors’ groups, respectively. 54 patients answered the questionnaire (...) through their doctors. The least informative item in the consent form was how to obtain the study medication after trial. If a benefit were demonstrated in the study, 60% of research participants and 35% of EC answered that all patients should continue receiving study medication after trial; 43% of investigators believed the medication should be given to participants, and 40% to subjects who participated and benefited from treatment. For 50% of the sponsors, study medication should be assured to participants who had benefited from treatment. The majority of responders answered that medication should be provided free by sponsors; investigators and sponsors believed the medication should be kept until available in the public health sector; EC members said that the patient should keep the benefit; patients answered that benefits should be assured for life. Conclusions Due to the study limitations, the results cannot be generalised; however, the data can contribute to discussion of this complex topic through analysing the views of stakeholders in clinical research in Brazil. (shrink)

Anchored in stakeholder theory, the study aimed at examining the extent of voluntary human capital disclosures in annual reports of top 20 Bangladeshi and Indian listed companies. In addition to qualitative content analysis of the annual reports for the year 2010–2011, this study also conducted a series of in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders of the companies of both the countries to understand their views on voluntary HC disclosures in corporate annual reports. It was found that the level (...) of voluntary HC disclosures was very low in case of the companies of both the countries. Moreover, it was observed that HC disclosures of companies mostly composed of positive information. From the views of stakeholders, it was evident that stakeholders unanimously recognized the necessity of credible HC disclosures in corporate annual reports. The HC disclosure index framed in this study may be useful in developing a South Asian model of corporate HC disclosures. This study contributes to the existing literature on HC disclosures where there has been a distinct lack of engagement-based research works. (shrink)

This article focuses stakeholder theory on that critical juncture where stakeholder relationships and corporate policy decisions converge. A case study methodology is described that permits detailed analyses of multiple stakeholders’ objectives; it is suitable for studies of major corporate strategic decisions that are complex, controversial, involve multiple stakeholders, and require strategic trade-offs. The methodology is applied here to the dramatic decision by a Pacific Northwest forest company to phase out traditional clear-cut harvesting methods of old-growth forests. The study’s (...) findings point to new research questions and have theoretical implications for a finer grained conceptualization of stakeholder groups, stakeholder objectives, and stakeholder issues. (shrink)

To contribute to the continuing challenge of explaining how managers identify stakeholders and assess their salience, in this article, we chronicle the history, assess the impact, and evaluate the possibilities opened by Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (MAW-1997). We do so through two types of qualitative analysis, and also through utilizing a quantitative network analysis tool. The first qualitative analysis categorizes the major contributions of the most influential papers succeeding MAW-1997; the second identifies and compares the relevant issues with MAW-1997 (...) at the time of initial publication and today. We apply main path analysis, a quantitative tool, to map how this scholarly domain has evolved. These three analyses robustly depict the impact of MAW-1997 and the ensuing scholarly conversation, and they enable us to illustrate the current state and trajectory of stakeholder identification and salience scholarship. We close by discussing pressing topics related to the broader body of stakeholder theory literature. (shrink)

This article examines four leading multi-stakeholder labour monitoring organizations. All operating in the maquiladora industry, these organizations are viewed in light of the growing global trend toward industry self-regulation, or what has been referred to as the 'global out-sourcing of regulation'. Their Board compositions, codes of conduct and monitoring and enforcement strategies are all examined as a means of tentatively positioning these organizations along an 'egoist-instrumentalist-moralist' ethical culture continuum. Such a framing provides insights into the perceived salience of these organizations' (...) broader stakeholders, the effectiveness of codes of conduct on workplace practices more generally, and the role that ethics plays in the governance and accountability of these increasingly important types of organizations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although the literature on multi-stakeholder initiatives for sustainability has grown in recent years, it is scattered across several academic fields, making it hard to ascertain how individual disciplines, such as business ethics, can further contribute to the debate. Based on an extensive review of the literature on certification and principle-based MSIs for sustainability, we show that the scholarly debate rests on three broad themes : theinputinto creating and governing MSIs; theinstitutionalizationof MSIs; and theimpactthat relevant initiatives create. While our discussion reveals (...) the theoretical underpinnings of the 3Is, it also shows that a number of research challenges related to business ethics remain unaddressed. We unpack these challenges and suggest how scholars can utilize theoretical insights in business ethics to push the boundaries of the field. Finally, we also discuss what business ethics research can gain from theory development in the MSI field. (shrink)

Extending the dialogue on corporate social performance as descriptive stakeholder management, we examine differences in CSP activity between family and nonfamily firms. We argue that CSP activity can be explained by the firm’s identity orientation toward stakeholders. Specifically, individualistic, relational, or collectivistic identity orientations can describe a firm’s level of CSP activity toward certain stakeholders. Family firms, we suggest, adopt a more relational orientation toward their stakeholders than nonfamily firms, and thus engage in higher levels of CSP. (...) Further, we invoke collectivistic identity orientation to argue that the higher the level of family or founder involvement within a family firm, the greater the level of CSP toward specific stakeholders. Using social performance rating data from 1991 to 2005, we find that family and nonfamily firms demonstrate notable differences in terms of social initiatives and social concerns. We also find that the level of family and founder involvement is related to the type and frequency of a family firm’s social initiatives and social concerns. (shrink)

The popularity of the stakeholder model has been achieved thanks to its powerful visual scheme and its very simplicity. Stakeholder management has become an important tool to transfer ethics to management practice and strategy. Nevertheless, legitimate criticism continues to insist on clarification and emphasises on the perfectible nature of the model. Here, rather than building on the discussion from a philosophical or theoretical point of view, a different and innovative approach has been chosen: the analysis will return to the origin (...) of stakeholder theory and will keep the graphical framework firmly in perspective. It will confront the stakeholder model’s graphical representation to the discussion on stakeholder definition, stakeholder identification and categorisation, to re-centre the debate to the strategic origin of the stakeholder model. The ambiguity and the vagueness of the stakeholder concept are discussed from managerial and legal approaches. The impacts of two major shortcomings of the popular stakeholder framework are examined: the boundaries and the level of the firm’s environment, and the ambivalent position of pressure groups and regulators. Working pragmatically, with a focus on the managerial and organisational perspective, an attempt is made to clarify the categorisations and classifications by introducing new terminology with a distinction between stakeholders, stakewatchers and stakekeepers. The analysis will finally lead to a proposed upgraded and refined version of the stakeholder model, with incremental ameliorations close to Freeman’s original model and a return of focus to its essence, the managerial implications in a strategic approach. (shrink)

There is little published literature on the ethical concerns of stakeholders in HIV vaccine trials. This study explored the ethical challenges identified by various stakeholders, through an open-ended, in-depth approach. While the few previous studies have been largely quantitative, respondents in this study had the opportunity to spontaneously identify the issues that they perceived to be of priority concern in the South African context. Stakeholders spontaneously identified the following as ethical priorities: informed consent, social harms, collaborative relationships (...) between research stakeholders, the participation of children and adolescents, access to treatment for participants who become infected with HIV, physical harms, fair participant and community selection, confidentiality, benefits, and payment. While there is some speculation that research in developing countries poses special ethical challenges, overall no issues were identified that have not been anticipated in international guidance, literature and popular frameworks. However, the South African context affords a distinctive gloss to these expected issues; for example, respondents were concerned that the predominant selection of black participants may perpetuate racist practices of apartheid. Stakeholders should be aware of contextual factors impacting on the implementation of ethical principles. We make a series of recommendations for South African trials, including amendments to the ethical-legal framework and research policies, and, for further research. (shrink)

Sustainable development (SD) – that is, “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations” – can be pursued in many different ways. Stakeholder relations management (SRM) is one such way, through which corporations are confronted with economic, social, and environmental stakeholder claims. This paper lays the groundwork for an empirical analysis of the question of how far SD can be achieved through SRM. It describes the so-called SD–SRM (...) perspective as a distinctive research approach and shows how it relates to the wider body of stakeholder theory. Next, the concept of SD is operationalized for the microeconomic level with reference to important documents. Based on the ensuing SD framework, it is shown how SD and SRM relate to each other, and how the two concepts relate to other popular concepts such as Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The paper concludes that the significance of societal guiding models such as SD and of management approaches like CSR is strongly dependent on their footing in society. (shrink)

Confronted with mounting pressure to ensure accountability vis-à-vis customers, citizens and beneficiaries, organizational leaders need to decide how to choose and implement so-called accountability standards. Yet while looking for an appropriate standard, they often base their decisions on cost-benefit calculations, thus neglecting other important spheres of influence pertaining to more broadly defined stakeholder interests. We argue in this paper that, as a part of the strategic decision for a certain standard, management needs to identify and act according to the needs (...) of all stakeholders. We contend that the creation of a dialogical understanding among affected stakeholders cannot be a mere outcome of applying certain accountability standards, but rather must be a necessary precondition for their use. This requires a stakeholder dialogue prior to making a choice. We outline such a discursive decision framework for accountability standards based on the Habermasian concept of communicative action and, in the final section, apply our conceptual framework to one of the most prominent accountability tools (AA 1000). (shrink)

Objective The UK Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine programme commenced in the autumn of 2008 for year 8 (age 12–13 years) schoolgirls. We examine whether the vaccine should be given when there is a difference of opinion between daughters and parents or guardians. Design Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Participants A sample of 25 stakeholders: 14 professionals involved in the development of the HPV vaccination programme and 11 professionals involved in its implementation. Results Overriding the parents' wishes was perceived as (...) problematic and could damage the relationship between school and parents. A number of practical problems were raised in relation to establishing whether parents were genuinely against their daughter receiving the vaccine. Although many respondents recognised that the Gillick guidelines were relevant in establishing whether a girl could provide consent herself, they still felt that there were significant problems in establishing whether girls could be assessed as Gillick competent. In some areas school nurses had been advised not to give the vaccine in the absence of parental consent. None of the respondents suggested that a girl should be vaccinated against her consent even if her parents wanted her to have the vaccine. Conclusions While the Gillick guidelines provide a legal framework to help professionals make judgements about adolescents consenting to medical treatment, in practice there appears to be variable and confused interpretation of this guidance. Improved legal structures, management procedures and professional advice are needed to support those who are assessing competence and establishing consent to vaccinate adolescents in a school setting. (shrink)

Various corporate social activities were regressed on self-report measures of stakeholder-orientations from 220 CEOs from large Fortune 500 industrial and service firms. Overall, the relationship between who CEOs say is important and corporate activities toward those stakeholders is much weaker than anticipated. Of the expected relationships, only corporate philanthropy was positively related to CEO community orientation. The few other significant findings were less straightforward. Return on equity (ROE) of the company was related to the CEO's customer orientation rather than (...) the CEO's stockholder orientation, and liberal HRM programs were positively associated with a CEO's stockholder orientation rather than employee orientation. (shrink)

Stakeholder participation is an increasingly popular ingredient within environmental management and decision-making. While much has been written about its purported benefits, a question that has been largely neglected is whether decision-making informed through stakeholder participation is actually likely to yield decisions that are morally justified in their own right. Using moral methodology as a starting point, we argue that stakeholder participation in environmental decision-making may indeed be an appropriate means to produce morally justified decisions, the reason being that such participation (...) may constitute an efficient way to satisfy the standard requirements on moral reasoning and moral justification. This finding also emphasizes the importance of identifying those settings most conducive to allowing different stakeholders to both challenge each other’s arguments and to adopt each other’s perspectives in order to make effective use of participation in environmenta... (shrink)

In spite of the thousands of articles on stakeholder theory, research on value creation has had a shorter history and narrower breadth. Only a few studies have researched value creation from stakeholder perspective looking at how stakeholders appropiate value or the processes or activities by which stakeholders create value. Consequently to date, certain questions still remain unanswered regarding how a firm should treat stakeholders in order to create value. Several questions arise specifically from the stakeholder's side: What (...) does "value" mean for a particular group of stakeholders and how do firms create these different types of value? How do we measure the value created by stakeholders? The purpose of this paper is to answer these questions from Amartya Sen's Capability Approach, identifying and measuring stakeholders' capabilities in the value creation process. Stakeholder Capability is the adequate concept for understanding stakeholder welfare rather than the utility function concept. The empirical evidence comes from an in-depth case study of the company The Grobo Group and its stakeholders. According to the results, the following stakeholder capabilities are relevant to value creation: being employable, being autonomus, being innovative, being entreprenurial, being responsive, being socially integrated, being emphatic, being "green" and being healthy. (shrink)

NGOs have taken a dominant position in setting the agendas of Corporate Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investment matters, thereby skewing the efforts of corporates to limit negative externalities towards their own agendas. As the latter remain to a certain extent unpredictable, corporates must deal with an information asymmetry. This situation can be explained by the historically defensive nature of Corporate Responsibility codes established by companies under pressure of the NGOs. In this paper, I contend that only a new approach to (...) Corporate Responsibility could reverse this asymmetry: one where the social responsibility matters are articulated in a political debate between all stakeholders of a company and where conflicting interests are addressed in a deliberative process. To this end, the corporate world and the NGOs need to understand the need for a larger debate that includes all relevant stakeholders defined as the Public in the sense of Dewey. Latour and the Actor-Network theory provide us with a workable framework to structure such a dialogue, where participants have the authority and legitimacy to speak for the Public. (shrink)

This study contributes to understanding stakeholder engagement strategies by examining competitive responses alongside sociopolitical implications after a major exogenous shock—the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between the “Big Four” U.S. tobacco firms and 46 state attorneys general. We compare the different stakeholder engagement strategies of the two remaining U.S. tobacco manufacturers, Philip Morris (PM) and R. J. Reynolds (RJR), between 1998 and 2017. Implications for stakeholder theory from a relatively rare natural experiment highlight the importance of simultaneously managing multiple (...) class='Hi'>stakeholders, inclusive of domestic and international sociopolitical and value chain stakeholders over time, for sustained value creation. Although PM and RJR initially pursued heterogeneous strategies by re-configuring relationships with relevant stakeholders, each firm’s growth prospects for the first decade post-MSA were exacerbated by various stakeholders through withholding and selective engagement strategies. Implications for how multiple, simultaneous stakeholder relationships can serve as important resources for achieving or limiting sustained growth are discussed. (shrink)

While stakeholder theory has traditionally considered organization’s interactions with stakeholders in terms of independent, dyadic relationships, recent scholarship has pointed to the fact that organizations exist within a complex network of intertwining relationships [e.g., Rowley, T. J.: 1997, The Academy of Management Review 22(4), 887–910]. However, further theoretical and empirical development of the interactions between stakeholders has been lacking. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding and measuring the effects upon the organization of competing, complementary and (...) cooperative stakeholder interactions, which we refer to as stakeholder multiplicity. We draw upon three forms of fit (i.e. fit as matching, fit as moderation, and fit as gestalts; Venkatraman, N.: 1989) to develop a framework for understanding stakeholder multiplicity based upon the direction, strength, and synergies of the interacting claims. Additionally, we draw upon the theory of stakeholder identification and salience of Mitchell et al. (1997), which we argue provides a more relevant and significantly more illustrative explanation of the nature and effects of stakeholder interactions upon the organization than the network approach of Rowley (1997). Furthermore, we ground our framework through reference to three stakeholder groups (i.e. governments, customers, and employees) and the stakeholder issue of concern for the natural environment. We propose a hierarchy of the multiplicity strength of influence of these three stakeholder groups. Potential measurement and implications are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Employing utilitarian criteria, Jones and Felps, in “Shareholder Wealth Maximization and Social Welfare: A Utilitarian Critique” (Business Ethics Quarterly23[2]: 207–38), examined the sequential logic leading from shareholder wealth maximization to maximal social welfare and uncovered several serious empirical and conceptual shortcomings. After rendering shareholder wealth maximization seriously compromised as an objective for corporate operations, they provided a set of criteria regarding what a replacement corporate objective would look like, but do not offer a specific alternative. In this article, we draw (...) on neo-utilitarian thought to advance a refined version of normative stakeholder theory that we believe addresses a major remaining criticism of extant versions, their lack of specificity. More particularly, we provide a single-valued objective function for the corporation—stakeholder happiness enhancement—that would allow managers to make principled choices between/among policy options when stakeholder interests conflict. (shrink)

This is the conundrum that gives rise to the issue of tax avoidance: Although governments always seem to lack sufficient funds to support the needs of society, tax codes are often written that offer “a way out” of paying taxes for some but not all constituents. The ways out are referred to as loopholes that allow taxpayers to avoid taxes. This paper first defines the basic terms of tax avoidance and tax evasion and then offers an ethical review of the (...) morality of aggressive tax avoidance. Aggressive tax avoidance is then addressed in relationship a corporate entity’s tone at the top. The conclusion is drawn that use of the letter of the law to avoid payment of taxes sorely needed by governments for the good faith provision of public goods and services is ethically unacceptable. Several suggestions for change are provided, including a new financial statement disclosure and the possibility of a published corporate ethics report. (shrink)

In the present study, I sought to more fully understand stakeholder organizations’ strategies for influencing business firms. I conducted interviews with 28 representatives of four environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs): Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Greenpeace, Environmental Defense (ED), and Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Qualitative methods were used to analyze this data, and additional data in the form of reviews of websites and other documents was conducted when provided by interviewees or needed to more fully comprehend interviewee’s comments. Six propositions (...) derived from Frooman (1999) formed the basis for the initial data analysis; all six propositions were supported to some extent. Perhaps more interestingly, the data revealed that Frooman’s model is too parsimonious to adequately describe stakeholder influence strategies and related alliances, necessitating the development of an alternative theoretical model grounded in the data collected. (shrink)

This article is a first attempt to line out the conditions under which executives might have a real self-interest in pursuing a broad stakeholder management (SM) orientation to enlarge their power. We suggest that managers have wider latitude of action under an SM approach, even when this is instrumental to financial performance. The causally ambiguity of the performance effects of idiosyncratic relationships with stakeholders not only makes SM strategy difficult for competitors to imitate but also increases managerial discretion. When (...) managers use this situation for their own benefit, they can undermine the purported goals of the SM approach. By analyzing some of the factors that might lead to such disfunctionalities, this article advances a theory of the potential dark side of SM. (shrink)

The migration of publicly-held companies to private status through use of private equity has been both lauded and lambasted. While agency theorists praise the public-to-private or PTP firm as being an efficient form of corporate governance, others suggest that going private allows owners and managers to extract, rather than add, value.We contribute by developing a categorization of the potential sources of value for the PTP firm. We analyze the effects of each source of value, and find that there are specific (...) negative effects for non-equity stakeholders associated with several sources. Our analysis indicates that the degree to which value is added versus extracted will vary across firms; yet, all will tend to engage in some value extraction. Policy implications are discussed. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 75-77.

Since its inception, Stakeholder Management Capability (SMC) has constituted a powerful hermeneutic through which business organizations have understood and leveraged stakeholder relationships. On this model, achieving a high level of capability largely depends on managerial ability to effectively bargain with stakeholders and establish solidarity vis-à-vis the successful negotiation, implementation, and execution of "win–win" transactional exchanges. Against this account, it is rightly pointed out that a transactional explanation of stakeholder relationships, regarded by many as the bottom line for stakeholder management, (...) fails to provide managerial direction regarding how to resolve a variety of normative stakeholder claims that resist commoditization. In response to this issue, this paper has two overlapping goals. It seeks to elaborate a discourse theoretical approach to the problem by first drawing out Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action and delineating the various types of rational discourse. Second, the paper attempts to present concrete implications for SMC relative to reshaping the contours of rational, process, and transactional analysis in light of central discourse theoretical conclusions. (shrink)

This project investigates salient stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain orientation (SRSCO) in the apparel and footwear sector focusing on fair labor management issues. SRSCO was conceptualized as a composite of internal organizational direction and external partnership for a creation and continuation of fair labor conditions throughout the supply chain. Primary stakeholders identified were consumers, regulation, industry, and media. A total of 209 mail survey responses from sourcing managers of U.S. apparel and footwear companies were analyzed. Two dimensions (...) of SRSCO were confirmed: internal direction and external partnership. Consumer and industry peer pressures were found significantly related to internal direction, while industry peers and media were significantly related to the external partnership. Regulation was not significantly related to either internal direction or external partnerships. Lack of regulation forces to govern labor issues and roles of consumers, industry peers, and media in promoting fair labor management are discussed in this article. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives have become a vital part of the organizational landscape for corporate social responsibility. Recent debates have explored whether these initiatives represent opportunities for the “democratization” of transnational corporations, facilitating civic participation in the extension of corporate responsibility, or whether they constitute new arenas for the expansion of corporate influence and the private capture of regulatory power. In this article, we explore the political dynamics of these new governance initiatives by presenting an in-depth case study of an organization often (...) heralded as a model MSI: the Forest Stewardship Council. An effort to address global deforestation in the wake of failed efforts to agree a multilateral convention on forests at the Rio Summit in 1992, the FSC was launched in 1993 as a non-state regulatory experiment: a transnational MSI, administering a global eco-labeling scheme for timber and forest products. We trace the scheme’s evolution over the past two decades, showing that while the FSC has successfully facilitated multi-sectoral determination of new standards for forestry, it has nevertheless failed to transform commercial forestry practices or stem the tide of tropical deforestation. Applying a neo-Gramscian analysis to the organizational evolution of the FSC, we examine how broader market forces and resource imbalances between non-governmental and market actors can serve to limit the effectiveness of MSIs in the current neo-liberal environment. This presents dilemmas for NGOs which can lead to their defection, ultimately undermining the organizational legitimacy of MSIs. (shrink)

The stakeholder perspective has provided a rich forum for a variety of debates at the intersection of business and society. Scholars gathered for two consecutive years, first in North America, and then in Europe, to discuss the major issues surrounding what has come to be known as stakeholder theory, to attempt to find common ground, and to uncover areas in need of further inquiry. Those meetings led to a list of “tensions” and a call for papers for this special issue (...) to help address them. In this article, we introduce the resulting articles and provide some brief commentary on their importance. We end with a few of our own observations about the stakeholder perspective and stakeholder research. (shrink)

When conflicts regarding industrial operations erupt between countries, relationships between corporations and stakeholders may be affected. We combine insights from stakeholder theory and studies on government and corporate social responsibility to investigate how intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement. Relying on attribution theory and a qualitative analysis of the Finnish Metsä-Botnia (hereafter Botnia) company during the intergovernmental conflict between Uruguay and Argentina, we explore the mediating role of political attributions—defined as the stakeholder network actors’ inferences regarding governmental motives—in the process (...) by which intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement. We induce three types of political attributions: instrumentalizing, which points to the undeclared instrumental motives of governments; radicalizing, which refers to the beliefs that governments immoderately intensify confrontation; and acting in bad faith, which relates to the perceptions that governments act in inconsistent and/or morally inappropriate ways. Our results show how these attributions combine in specific configurations to explain how intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement throughout the conflict. Our study theorizes the role of governments as stakeholders in stakeholder engagement and expands organizational studies of attribution to the stakeholder and global levels. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to gain attention atop the corporate agenda and is by now an important component of the dialogue between companies and their stakeholders. Nevertheless, there is still little guidance as to how companies can implement CSR activity in order to maximize returns to CSR investment. Theorists have identified many company-favoring outcomes of CSR; yet there is a dearth of research on the psychological mechanisms that drive stakeholder responses to CSR activity. Borrowing from the literatures on (...) meansend chains and relationship marketing, we propose a conceptual model that explains how CSR provides individual stakeholders with numerous benefits (functional, psychosocial, and values) and how the type and extent to which a stakeholder derives these benefits from CSR initiatives influences the quality of the relationship between the stakeholder and the company. The paper discusses the implications of these insights and highlights a number of areas for future research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many companies engage in dialogue with nongovernmental organizations about societal issues. The question is what a regulative ideal for such dialogues should be. In the literature on corporate social responsibility, the Habermasian notion of communicative action is often presented as a regulative ideal for stakeholder dialogue, implying that actors should aim at consensus and set strategic considerations aside. In this article, we argue that in many cases, communicative action is not a suitable regulative ideal for dialogue between companies and NGOs. (...) We contend that there is often an adversarial element in the relation between companies and NGOs, and that an orientation towards consensus can be in tension with this adversarial relation. We develop an alternative approach to stakeholder dialogue called ‘agonistic deliberation.’ In this approach, conflict and strategic considerations play a legitimate and, up to a certain point, desirable role. (shrink)

Although stakeholder theory is widely accepted in environmental disclosure research, empirical evidence about the role of stakeholders in firms’ disclosure is still scarce. The authors address this issue for a setting of carbon disclosure. Our international sample comprises the Carbon Disclosure Project Global 500, S&P 500, and FTSE 350 reports from 2008 to 2011, resulting in a total of 1,120 firms with 3,631 firm-year observations. The authors apply Tobit regressions to analyze the relationship between carbon disclosure and the relevance (...) of the following stakeholder groups: government, general public, media, employees, and customers. Our results confirm that in addition to carbon performance, all stakeholders are associated with carbon disclosure. Only one stakeholder group acts as a moderator for the relationship between carbon performance and carbon disclosure. Furthermore, the authors find that carbon performance but not the affiliation to a carbon-intensive industry acts as a moderator between stakeholder relevance and carbon disclosure. (shrink)

BackgroundBiobanking provides exciting opportunities for research on stored biospecimens. However, these opportunities to advance medical science are fraught with challenges including ethical and legal dilemmas. This study was undertaken to establish perspectives of South African stakeholders on the ethico-legal dimensions of biobanking.MethodsAn in-depth exploratory study was conducted with 25 purposively selected biobankers, clinicians, researchers, postgraduate students in biobanking research, and research ethics committee (REC) members in South Africa. Potential study participants were recruited through known hubs for biobanking in the (...) country, online searches and the snowball sampling technique. A semi-structured face-to-face or Skype interview was arranged. Data was analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsThe emergent themes included: inconsistency in understanding consent models, disconnect between biobank researchers and biosample donors, inadequate processes to support re-consenting minors, inconsistent governance processes for biobanking research; challenges with sample and data sharing, and suboptimal strategies for benefit sharing and return of results. Biobanking practice in general appeared to be inconsistent and fragmented. While the need for consent in research is explicitly outlined in legislative documents, some respondents were unclear on the type of consent model to apply in biosample collection. They also reported inconsistencies in research participants’ understanding of consent. Furthermore, these respondents’ own understanding of consent and consent models were dependent on where they were positioned in biobanking practice (roles occupied). Respondents were unsure about the process to follow to re-consent child participants once the age of majority (≥ 18 years) was reached. It was not surprising that consent was identified as one of the major ethical challenges in biobanking practice. In certain settings, some respondents reported suboptimal governance processes for sample collection. Participants were generally unsure about how to operationalise benefit sharing and how to approach the idea of returning results to research participants and biobank donors.ConclusionThe study findings indicated inconsistencies in stakeholder understanding of ethico-legal considerations related to biobanking in South Africa. A need for ongoing ethics capacity development among stakeholders was identified. Improving understanding of the ethics of biobanking could be facilitated by acknowledging the disconnect created by biosamples in the relationship between biobank researchers and donors. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to transcend the assumption that stakeholder engagement is necessarily a responsible practice. Stakeholder engagement is traditionally seen as corporate responsibility in action. Indeed, in some literatures there exists an assumption that the more an organisation engages with its stakeholders, the more it is responsible. This simple 'more is better' view of stakeholder engagement belies the true complexity of the relationship between engagement and corporate responsibility. Stakeholder engagement may be understood in a variety of (...) different ways and from a variety of different theoretical perspectives. Stakeholder engagement may or may not involve a moral dimension and, hence, is primarily a morally neutral practice. It is therefore argued that stakeholder engagement must be seen as separate from, but related to, corporate responsibility. A model that reflects the multifaceted relationship between the two constructs is proposed. This model not only allows the coincidence of stakeholder engagement with corporate responsibility, but also allows for the development of the notion of corporate irresponsibility. (shrink)

In this article, we will outline the principles of stakeholder capitalism and describe how this view rejects problematic assumptions in the current narratives of capitalism. Traditional narratives of capitalism rely upon the assumptions of competition, limited resources, and a winner-take-all mentality as fundamental to business and economic activity. These approaches leave little room for ethical analysis, have a simplistic view of human beings, and focus on value-capture rather than value-creation. We argue these assumptions about capitalism are inadequate and leave four (...) problems in their wake. We wish to reframe the narrative of capitalism around the reinforcing concepts of stakeholders coupled with value creation and trade. If we think about how a society can sustain a system of voluntary value creation and trade, then capitalism can once more become a useful concept. (shrink)

Robust stakeholder engagement in health research requires broad communicative integration, not only of patients but also other stakeholders such as health system leaders, clinicians, and researcher...

Stakeholder theory has been an incredibly powerful tool for understanding and improving organisations, and their relationship with other actors in society. That these critical ideas are now accepted within mainstream business is due in no small part to the influence of stakeholder theory. However, improvements to stakeholder engagement through stakeholder theory have tended to help stakeholders who are already somewhat powerful within organisational settings, while those who are less powerful continue to be marginalised and routinely ignored. In this paper, (...) we argue that one possible obstacle preventing less powerful stakeholders from speaking up and/or being heard by organisations is found at the ontological level, where we have identified an ‘essentialist self’ underpinning the stakeholder concept. By deconstructing the stakeholder concept through how it is defined, discussed and debated, and linking this back to the practical consequences of the theory for the least powerful stakeholders, we are able to make three contributions. One, through our deconstruction, it is clear that at an ontological level, stakeholder theory is underpinned by an implicit, and problematic, assumption of the ‘essentialist self’, where the organisation is treated as the ‘natural, universal self’, and anyone not closely resembling this narrow (and unrealistic) view of self is treated as ‘other’. Two, we build on the work of authors such as Wicks et al. (Bus Ethics Q 4(4):475–497, 1994), who highlight the need for consideration of the self within stakeholder theory. We thus take our findings from contribution one and begin to build a more holistic view of the self within the stakeholder concept, where each self is encouraged to recognise common selves outside and inside the corporation. Third, we link the theoretical discussion to the practical by discussing some imperfect ways in which a more holistic, enriched stakeholder concept might begin to help mitigate marginalisation for some stakeholders. (shrink)