A Longitudinal Study of Significant Change in Stakeholder Management (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Future of Stakeholder Management Theory: A Temporal Perspective
Journal of Business Ethics, 2013
We propose adding a temporal dimension to stakeholder management theory, and assess the implications thereof for firm-level competitive advantage. We argue that a firm's competitive advantage fundamentally depends on its capacity for stakeholder management related, transformational adaptation over time. Our new temporal stakeholder management approach builds upon insights from both the resource-based view (RBV) in strategic management and institutional theory. Stakeholder agendas and their relative salience to the firm evolve over time, a phenomenon well understood in the literature, and requiring what we call level 1 adaptation. However, the dominant direction of stakeholder pressures can also change, namely, from supporting resource heterogeneity at the firm level to fostering industry homogeneity, and vice versa. When dominant stakeholder pressures shift from supporting heterogeneity towards stimulating homogeneity in industry, the firm must engage in level 2 or transformational adaptation. Stakeholders typically provide valuable resources to the firm in an early stage. Without these resources, which foster heterogeneity (in line with RBV thinking), the firm would not exist. At a later stage, stakeholders also contribute to interfirm homogeneity via isomorphism pressures (in line with institutional theory thinking). Adding a temporal dimension to stakeholder management theory has far reaching implications for this theory's practical relevance to senior level management in business.
2007
One of the critical distinctions between shareholder theory and stakeholder theory rests on the role of management in the resolution of the firm's internal conflicts. Whereas managers are considered as a source of conflicts by agency/shareholder theorists, they are often viewed as useful mediators in the stakeholder approach. This paper proposes an alternative theory on the role of management in corporate governance, the so-called short term salient stakeholder theory, and illustrates it with a longitudinal case study of Eurotunnel, the Channel Tunnel operator. When the firm's legitimate stakeholders have very different information levels and bargaining strengths, this theory predicts that (i) firms are governed in the interests of a unique stakeholder group (ii) managers have a minor role and are prone to collude with the most powerful interest group (iii) this autocratic type of governance is unstable in the long-term as the legitimate stakeholders expropriated at one period use influence strategies to gain power in the next period (iv) the chronic conflicts associated to short-term salient stakeholder management lead to poor organizational performance.
Stakeholder Theory and Managerial Discretion
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2007
There is a natural tension in stakeholder research between the desire to create managerial theory, which recommends practices for managing firm-stakeholder relationships, and the acknowledgment that some powerful stakeholder groups can constrain managerial choice altogether. Stakeholder researchers often ignore this tension and assume high levels of managerial discretion. Here, we relax this assumption, assume instead that managerial discretion varies across firms, and explore stakeholder management's short-term effects on performance and long-term effects on future discretion.
Stakeholder Influence Strategies: The Roles of Structural and Demographic Determinants
Business & Society, 2005
Using Frooman’s typology of stakeholder influence strategies, this research examines the strategies that stakeholders select to exert influence on a firm. Using an experimental approach, the responses of actual environmental leaders to a series of hypothetical vignettes were examined. The results of the experiment suggest how both structural and demographic variables can act as determinants of strategy choice along with how these two types of variables may both complement and inhibit one another. Specifically, the results suggest that repertoires of strategies play a critical role in stakeholder behavior. Demographic variables appear to define the repertoires of strategies the stakeholder will typically choose among, whereas structural variables further refine choice from within that repertoire.
Business and Society Review, 2016
We examine the role of managers in controlling the positive impact of stakeholder management (SM) on firm financial performance (FP) in the long term. We develop and test competing hypotheses on whether managers act as "good citizens" or engage in "self-dealing" when allowed greater discretion. We test our assertions using dynamic panel data analysis of a sample of 806 U.S. public firms operating in 34 industries over 5 years (2005-2009). Our results indicate a nuanced influence of managerial discretion contexts on the SM-FP relationship. We infer that given more latitude in decision making, as long as the "going is good" managers act as good citizens, but otherwise they revert to managerial self-dealing. In light of our results, firms designing governance mechanisms to encourage
2020
Today's business operating environment is increasingly volatile and to compete successfully, organizations continually need to manage well their business. In general, good management implies careful management of the strategic and operational environments of the company, including relations with stakeholders. According to the literature, integrating stakeholder management into strategic management process leads to better performance for the company. <strong>Purpose</strong> : the aim of this paper is to examine the historical development of stakeholder theory and to trace it influence in the strategic management discipline, it aims also to expose the different approachs of stakeholder theory with a focus on its importance as a strategic managerial tool when it is put on practice by proposing a model based on strategic view. <strong>Design / Methodology / Approach -</strong> the paper opts for a thorough review of the existing literature, an analysis of th...
The Evolution Of Stakeholder Regimes: beyond neo-corporatism
How can one identify a stakeholder? It is not too hard to identify individuals, but groups with shared values are much harder to pin down. In practice they ebb and flow, forming and dissolving, splitting and merging, depending on the particular constellation of problems. Some are more self-aware than others, some are more visibly powerful than others; yet those are not sufficient
Stakeholder Mismanagement and Corporate Social Responsibility Crises
European Management Journal, 2006
In the past decade, the stakeholder approach has gained much acceptance among academics and practitioners. Noticeably, there has been little consideration of the motivations and processes used by businesses to avoid or neglect stakeholder power and pressures. This is all the more remarkable in the light of recent corporate social responsibility scandals in which these mechanisms seems to have been at work. In order to shed some light on the background, organizational mechanisms and strategies underpinning stakeholder mismanagement, this paper reports two studies involving businesses that have gone through a severe integrity crisis, one that focuses on a single company (Ahold) and one on an entire industry (the Dutch building industry). While taking place in a country well-known for its stakeholder-oriented 'polder model', various stakeholders groups saw their basic interests violated in both cases.