Service innovation as a political process

Service innovation processes are driven by stakeholders in interaction and are understood and sketched as a value negotiation process that consists of an iterative process of securing potential value in service. While previous research has focused on service innovation as a harmonious closed system, our study explores service innovation as a political process in which stakeholders negotiate to create and secure future value. Data are collected through interviews and participant observations in four different case studies. Our study contributes to the field by illuminating service innovation as a political process and explaining how this is operationalized. The findings also contribute to an understanding of how stakeholder resources impact a chosen strategy; the resulting strategy’s impact on the service concept vis-à-vis its potential value; and how several involved stakeholders formulate, negotiate, and secure future potential value, which are the activities that drive a service innovation process.     

De-Fusing Organizational Power Using Anonymity and Cognitive Factions in a Participative Strategic Planning Setting

When an organization is facing disruptive change or the need for new capabilities to fit new conditions, the creation of a democratic strategic plan can be useful. However, strategic plans typically only reflect the beliefs and values of their architects; not all stakeholders. To include the beliefs of all stakeholders requires a participative environment. Due to the potential deleterious effects that organizational power may have in a participative setting, anonymity and cognitive factions is proposed to reduce the possible negative effects associated with power in a participative strategic planning setting. Group support systems have been shown to protect relationships and retain the social order in these settings. In this specific case, through the use of a group support system that supports anonymity and cognitive faction identification, we found that the sources of power typically found and used to drive group decisions in an academic setting did not drive the content of the strategic plan.     

Stakeholder pressures,EMS implementation,and green innovation in MNC overseas subsidiaries

In this paper, we address the issue of green innovation by the overseas subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). Drawing upon stakeholder theory and institutional theory, we propose a conceptual model to explain how stakeholder pressures in host countries prompt MNC subsidiaries to undertake green product and process innovations. Our findings indicate that MNC subsidiaries need to meet market stakeholders’ pressures in order to achieve social legitimacy in host countries, and that the implementation of formal environmental management systems (EMS) is an important mechanism translating these pressures into green innovation initiatives. Furthermore, we find that the positive relationship between market stakeholder pressures and EMS implementation is reinforced by global ‘green’ institutional pressures in the different host countries.     

基于利益相关者关系质量改进的商业模式价值创造分析

从利益相关者关系质量、连续质量改进理论出发,采用理论分析和逻辑推理方法,考察了利益相关者关系质量、质量维度、维度层次性,提出了利益相关者关系质量连续改进的构想,并建立由焦点企业、利益相关者及跨越二者边界活动所组成的关系质量改进框架。在此基础上,分析了关系质量改进下的价值创造逻辑、过程和机制,阐释了关系质量改进对焦点企业与利益相关者之间的产品和服务交易效率、资源和能力互补、业务和活动锁定以及网络价值传递的影响,为企业商业模式创新和价值创造实践提供借鉴。     

Stakeholder Multiplicity: Toward an Understanding of the Interactions between Stakeholders

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.     

Stakeholder identification as entrepreneurial action: The social process of stakeholder enrollment in new venture emergence

There is growing interest in understanding the role of stakeholders—including financiers, employees, customers, suppliers, and communities—in the process of new venture emergence. We see potential to advance this stream of research by bridging a gap we observe between recent research on stakeholder enrollment in new ventures and longstanding research on stakeholder identification in established firms. To do so, we seek to explain why, how, and when, through social action, stakeholder identification and enrollment may (or may not) occur as an entrepreneur goes from an imagined opportunity to a new venture with enrolled stakeholders. To this end, we develop a model that conceptualizes stakeholder identification and enrollment as iterative, recursive, and constitutive social processes involving action in: refining and justifying to result in commonality with other actors; probing and positioning to result in mutuality with specific stakeholders identified; and enrolling and engaging to result in reciprocity with identified stakeholders. We argue that these social processes constitute the means through which opportunities are formed, specific stakeholders are identified, and stakes in new ventures are created and maintained, respectively. In doing so, we offer a more nuanced explanation of the dynamism implied in stakeholder identification and enrollment in emerging ventures.     

Managing Relationships with Environmental Stakeholders: A Study of U.K. Water and Electricity Utilities

In this paper we report a study of the approach of six U.K. water and electricity companies towards managing the relationship with their 'green' stakeholders. Stakeholders are accorded increasing importance in political discourse and stakeholder theory is emerging as a promising framework for the analysis of corporate social performance.We studied the companies' general approach towards green stakeholders, their dealings with specific stakeholder groups and whether they emphasised the consultation or the information aspect of stakeholder management. We found that none of the six companies had a systematic stakeholder approach that extended to all potential green stakeholders. Rather, the importance of specific stakeholder groups seemed to be determined by managers' intuition and by the stance that the stakeholders themselves displayed towards the company.Green stakeholders with an institutional power base – government via legislation, environmental and industry regulators – emerged as the most immediately influential stakeholders. The Environment Agency, the environmental regulator, played an especially important role in the companies' environmental management. Customers and the general public – the source of corporate social legitimacy – were also considered to be important, but their influence was more long term and based on voice, rather than the potential for direct retaliation. Economic stakeholders were generally considered to be not very interested in the companies' environmental performance.     

Training evaluation in Italian corporate universities: a stakeholder‐based analysis

Corporate universities have emerged as a mechanism for providing companies with a wide variety of training and development activities. They are a recent but under‐researched phenomenon, and given their substantial budgets, it might be expected that they would wish to evaluate what they do. The authors explore the evaluation practices of six Italian corporate universities, paying particular attention to the means by which these practices are tailored to the needs of the various stakeholders. Stakeholder‐based evaluation provides the theoretical framework for the study. The literature suggests that much evaluation of training focuses on a single stakeholder, the shareholder, and that practice draws heavily on Kirkpatrick's hierarchical model. In the context of the corporate university, however, the authors find that multi‐stakeholder evaluation is used in practice. Moreover, various aspects of corporate university performance were evaluated, and data were supplied to stakeholders depending on the nature of their involvement. Stakeholder‐based evaluation is argued to be a useful framework where there are a number of stakeholders, but training evaluation models other than the hierarchical one are needed if all relevant training factors are to be evaluated. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Stakeholder engagement through empowerment: The case of coffee farmers

While most studies on stakeholder engagement focus on high‐power stakeholders (typically, employees), limited attention has been devoted to the engagement of low‐power stakeholders. These have been defined as vulnerable stakeholders for their low capacity to influence corporations. Our research is framed around the engagement of low‐power stakeholders in the coffee industry who are, paradoxically, critical resource providers for the major roasters. Through the case study of Lavazza—the leading Italian roaster—we investigate empowerment actions addressed to smallholder farmers located in Brazil, India, East Africa, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. We contribute to the theoretical discussion around engagement and empowerment by developing a framework linking together areas of empowerment (defined in the literature) and specific empowerment actions (emerging from our interviews). Our insights shed light on how organizations can design empowerment strategies leading to more effective stakeholder engagement and how empowerment actions can contribute to turn low‐power stakeholders into active business partners. We demonstrate that moving from a traditional competitive view of corporate–stakeholder relationships to a stakeholder theory view based on a logic of cooperative partnerships reinforces the idea that stakeholder engagement and empowerment are both entangled with the value creation process.     

Evaluating a Framework for Multi-Stakeholder Decision Support in Water Resources Management

In this paper we describe a framework for multicriteria modeling and support of multi-stakeholder decision processes. We report on its testing in the development of a new water level management policy for a regulated lake-river system in Finland. In the framework the stakeholders are involved in the decision process from the problem structuring stage to the group consensus seeking stage followed by a stage of seeking public acceptance for the policy. The framework aims at creating an evolutionary learning process. In this paper we also focus on the use of a new interactive method for finding and identifying Pareto-optimal alternatives. Role playing experiments with students are used to test the practical applicability of a negotiation support procedure called the method of improving directions. We also describe the preference programming approach for the aggregation of the stakeholder opinions in the final evaluation of alternatives and consensus seeking.     

Privacy in the Information Age: Stakeholders, Interests and Values

Privacy is a relational and relative concept that has been defined in a variety of ways. In this paper we offer a systematic discussion of potentially different notions of privacy. We conclude that privacy as the freedom or immunity from the judgement of others is an extremely useful concept to develop ways in which to understand privacy claims and associated risks. To this end, we develop a framework of principles that explores the interrelations of interests and values for various stakeholders where privacy concerns have risen or are expected to rise. We argue that conflicts between the interests and values of different stakeholders may result in legitimate claims of privacy/transparency being ignored or underrepresented. Central to this analysis is the notion of a stakeholder. We argue that stakeholders are persons or groups with legitimate interests, of intrinsic value, in the procedural and/or substantive aspects of the privacy/transparency claim and subsequent judgements on that basis. Using the principles of access, representation, and power, which flow from our framework of analysis, we show how they can facilitate the identification of potential privacy/transparency risks using examples from the British National Health Service.     

Stakeholder Management Theory, Firm Strategy, and Ambidexterity

Stakeholder theory scholars have recently addressed two crucial calls: the first is for the integration of strategy and ethics, of stakeholder theory and strategic management, and the second call is for the development of a dynamic approach to stakeholder management. I have attempted to answer these calls by developing a theoretical framework that links together stakeholder management, stakeholder commitment to cooperate with the firm, key decision makers?? ethical commitment, and firm strategy. Starting from the basic assumption that managers cannot meet all stakeholders?? demands immediately and in a tailored manner, I contend, first, that an ambidextrous approach to stakeholder management is conducive to stakeholders?? commitment to cooperate for the sustainable well-being of the firm and, second, that firm strategy and key decision makers?? ethical commitment moderate the relationship between an ambidextrous stakeholder management and stakeholder commitment to cooperate. Furthermore, drawing on this theoretical framework, I attempt to address the call for the integration of strategy and ethics by proposing a three-level conceptual model that distinguishes the objectives, the field, and the levers of integration. Finally, I outline a set of propositions that, taken together, represent a first attempt to develop a dynamic approach to stakeholder management.     

Mediation as an Ethical Adjunct of Stakeholder Theory

A driving force behind the evolution of the stakeholder concept is the potential of negative outcomes for an organization as the result of conflict between that organization and its stakeholders. Where conflict does arise between an organization and stakeholder how might it be resolved in a manner compatible with stakeholder theory? Applying feminist ethical theory as a theoretical basis for stakeholder theory, mediation provides an appropriate process for resolving such disputes in comparison to traditional adversarial strategies. This paper discusses the attributes of mediation, and its potential benefits as a method to resolve disputes between businesses and their stakeholders.     

Stakeholders’ Influence and Contribution to Social Standards Development: The Case of Multiple Stakeholder Approach to ISO 26000 Development

We present an empirical investigation on how multiple stakeholders can influence and contribute to a standard development process. Based on the analysis of comments submitted by stakeholders developing ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility, we found no significant differences between the ratio of accepted and non-accepted comments among various stakeholder groups; however, we conclude that industry is the most influential stakeholder due to the volume of the comments. We also present a set of processes that stakeholders follow to influence and contribute to standards development, namely to (1) eliminate issues that are controversial and undesirable; (2) link and integrate the standard into a network of other documents and ISO standards; (3) seek consensus by highlighting areas for further dialogue or by addressing their exclusion from the standards development, (4) reinforce issues that are important; and (5) improve the content of the new standard. In conclusion, we provide a set of propositions about multi-stakeholder standards development and compare multi-stakeholder involvement in standards developed through a new committee established in existing standards setting organization [i.e., Committees within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)] and through new standards setting organizations established for one specific task (i.e., Forest Stewardship Council). We envisage that our study will be a useful platform to monitor and evaluate future developments of ISO 26000 and other multi-stakeholder standards.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring Stakeholder Relationships and Programme Reporting across Leading FTSE Companies

Although it is now widely recognised by business leaders that their companies need to accept a broader responsibility than short-term profits, recent research suggests that as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social reporting become more widespread, there is little empirical evidence of the range of stakeholders addressed through their CSR programmes and how such programmes are reported. Through a CSR framework which was developed in an exploratory study, we explore the nature of stakeholder relationships reported across leading FTSE companies and the importance they attach to communicating both social and business outcomes. It is evident from the hypotheses tested that the bigger FTSE companies, particularly extraction companies and telecoms, are more adept at identifying and prioritising their stakeholders, and linking CSR programmes to business and social outcomes. However, we draw the general conclusion that building stronger stakeholder relationships through CSR programmes – other than with customers – is not currently a priority for most companies. We also conclude that a limited sophistication in managing multiple stakeholders may compromise the impact of CSR upon business and social results. Finally, the managerial implications and the contribution of our study are discussed before closing with an acknowledgement of the limitations of this work and suggestions for further research.     

Corporate social responsibility as a participative process

Corporate social responsibility is frequently defined primarily in terms of the social and environmental impact of systemic organisational activity. This misses the point. To be applicable, corporate responsibility should be understood as a process , through which individuals ' moral values and concerns are articulated. Moreover, there are important grounds for asserting that such a process should be participative, involving employees (and perhaps other stakeholders). It seems inconsistent not to respect such groups' right to an opinion, while at the same time purporting to be ethical and responsible; also, a better alignment of organisational policy and employees' values holds possibilities for enhanced motivation and work performance. Through such a participative process, matters of social responsibility may be identified in the expectations and moral claims of an organisation's stakeholders. Such claims constitute prima facie obligations to which those responsible for corporate policy should attend, and where such demands conflict then dialogue is required in order to establish an appropriate course of action.     

利益相关者显著性的整合研究框架——主观感知与主体属性

利益相关者显著性研究经历了“基于身份”静态观到基于“主观感知”和“主体属性”动态观的转变过程。静态观的利益相关者显著性研究已不能帮助焦点企业管理者在一个动态复杂环境中有效识别出显著的利益相关者,但动态观在“谁是显著的利益相关者”问题上仍争议颇多。鉴于此,以动态观为切入点,把利益相关者显著性的影响因素分为焦点企业的主观感知和利益相关者的主体属性这两大研究视角,提炼出一个识别利益相关者显著性的整合研究框架。     

Stakeholder Salience Revisited: Refining,Redefining, and Refueling an Underdeveloped Conceptual Tool

This article revisits and further develops Mitchell et al.’s (Acad Manag Rev 22(4):853–886, 1997) theory of stakeholder identification and salience. Stakeholder salience holds considerable unrealized potential for understanding how organizations may best manage multiple stakeholder relationships. While the salience framework has been cited numerous times, attempts to develop it further have been relatively limited. We begin by reviewing the key contributions of other researchers. We then identify and seek to resolve three residual weaknesses in Mitchell et al.’s (1997) framework, thereby strengthening its foundations for further development. We argue, first, that urgency is not relevant for identifying stakeholders; second, that it is primarily the moral legitimacy of the stakeholder’s claim that applies to stakeholder salience; and last, that the salience of stakeholders will vary as the degrees of the attributes vary. These insights inform revised definitions of stakeholder salience and legitimacy, and necessitate a new theoretical underpinning for the role of legitimacy. Finally, we present an extensive agenda for future research with the objective of refueling research in stakeholder salience.     

Analysing moral issues in stakeholder relations

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for analysing managers' attitudes toward moral issues in stakeholder relations, and to operationalise the developed framework by defining statements to be used as empirical measures in survey research. The research question, how can moral issues in business be examined with the stakeholder approach, is answered by paying attention to both theoretical and empirical viewpoints. The paper reveals that by analysing a company's stakeholder relations, we can discover the important moral issues in business. To validate the framework developed and the empirical measures which result, the development process is described in detail. The argument is that making the development process visible is an important task in validating empirical measures in survey research. As a result of the research process, a total of 50 moral issues in eight stakeholder relations are identified, and operationalised with 58 itemised statements. The final conclusion is that the empirical measures developed in this paper are suitable for measuring moral issues in stakeholder relations, and that they can later be used in analysing real life managers' perceptions of moral issues in stakeholder relations.     

The business school scorecard: Examining the systematic sources of business school value

Stakeholder relationships are a critical resource that contribute to or inhibit value creation. Building on this assertion, we explore the value of the business school at a stakeholder level. We draw on research by the Canadian multistakeholder working group, the Business School Research Network (BSRN), which was established to facilitate collaborative interinstitutional research on the management and practice of business schools. We provide a conceptual model of the value chain and associated scorecard that take into account the sources of value judgments that pertain to a business school at the stakeholder‐level. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.