A Case Study of Stakeholder Identification and Prioritization by Managers

The purpose of this article is to examine stakeholder identification and prioritization by managers using the power, legitimacy, and urgency framework of Mitchell et al. (Academy of Management Review 22, 853–886; 1997). We use a multi-method, comparative case study of two large-scale sporting event organizing committees, with a particular focus on interviews with managers at three hierarchical levels. We support the positive relationship between number of stakeholder attributes and perceived stakeholder salience. Managers’ hierarchical level and role have direct and moderating effects on stakeholder identification and perceived salience. We also found that most stakeholders were definitive, dominant, or dormant types – the other five types were rare. Power has the most important effect on salience, followed by urgency and legitimacy. Based on our case study, we offer several ways to advance the theory of stakeholder identification and salience.     

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.     

A Stakeholder’s Perspective on Human Resource Management

In order to understand the system wherein human resource management practices are determined by the interactions of a complex system of actors, it is necessary to have a conceptual framework of analysis. In this respect, the works of scholars (Mitroff, 1983, Stakeholders of the Organizational Mind, Jessey-Bass; Freeman, 1984, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman) concerning stakeholder theory opened new perspectives in management theory. An organisation is understood as being part of a politico-economic system of stakeholders who interact and influence management practices. Each stakeholder tries to optimise and protect his interests (Frooman, 1999, Academy of Management Review 24, 191–205; Savage et al., 1991, Academy of Management Executive 5(2), 61–75). The framework of stakeholder analysis enables escape from a purely instrumental approach to HRM, and avoids reducing our understanding of conflicts within companies to mere antagonism between employees and their employers. It enables us to point out the existence of other stakeholders in the relationship. Notably, it allows for the incorporation into management theory of actors from the sphere of politics (president of the republic, government, national elected representatives – deputies and senators – and locally elected representatives – mayors and regional councillors, etc.) as well as their dependent administrations. All these actors are considered to be stakeholders who define the legal framework of firm management and guarantee the application of these laws.     

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.     

The Collaborative Enterprise

Instead of the currently prevailing competitive model, a more collaborative strategy is needed to address the concerns related to the unsustainability of today’s business. This article aims to explore collaborative approaches where enterprises seek to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with all stakeholders and want to produce sustainable values for their whole business ecosystem. Cases here analyzed demonstrate that alternative ways of doing business are possible. These enterprises share more democratic ownership structures, more balanced and broader governance systems, and a more comprehensive view of organizational goals and performance – which goes beyond the narrow concept of financial bottom line and into a stronger and systematic care of the needs and requirements of the different stakeholder groups. Thanks to this evidence and different theoretical and empirical contributions, we suggest that the strength and sustainability of enterprises come from their ability to fit into the environmental, social, and cultural context in which they operate. By creating values for all stakeholders, enterprises can involve them and gain deep support based on their commitment. This may lead to superior performance from a multiple-bottom-line perspective.     

A Network Perspective on Stakeholder Management: Facilitating Entrepreneurs in the Discovery of Opportunities

The problem of opportunity discovery is at the heart of entrepreneurial activity. Cognitive limitations determine the search for and the analysis of information and, as a consequence, constrain the identification of opportunities. Moreover, typical personal characteristics – locus of control, need for independence and need for achievement – suggest that entrepreneurs will tend to take a central position in their stakeholder environments and thus fail to adapt to the complexity of stakeholder relationships in their entrepreneurial activity. We approach this problem by adopting a network perspective on stakeholder management. We propose a heuristic approach of stakeholder analysis, which requires two mappings of the entrepreneurial constituents. The first mapping focuses on current interactions between the entrepreneur and their stakeholders, while the second focuses on a specific issue and the stakeholders that constitute it. In effect, such a stakeholder analysis requires entrepreneurs to use the complexity of stakeholder relationships in order to go beyond their cognitive limitations and thus facilitate the discovery of new opportunities. As we will argue, this has clear implications for the ethics and activities of entrepreneurs.     

The Confines of Stakeholder Management: Evidence from the Dutch Manufacturing Sector

Stakeholder theory is a pertinent example of a framework that has been stretched over many conceptual contexts and that has been applied to a wide variety of empirical phenomena. A pressing issue involves the scope of application of stakeholder theory, however, because it is not a comprehensive ethical scheme or problem-solving algorithm. We begin our search for the boundaries of stakeholder management by identifying a presently under-acknowledged yet major underlying assumption, notably that the approach is rooted in voluntary action and association. Building on this presumption, we argue that firm – stakeholder relationships are best to be understood in contractualist terms; i.e. as voluntary arrangements between two or more parties seeking mutual benefit. This assertion subsequently allows us to identify three boundary conditions applying to stakeholder theory: (1) the parties should be sufficiently autonomous; (2) their interests need to be alignable; and (3) they should be capableof living up to their commitments. We substantiate these criteria with evidence from a collective case study of buyer – supplier relationships in the Dutch manufacturing sector, demonstrating that the stakeholder management model fails when these boundary criteria are violated.     

Stakeholder theory: A process-ontological perspective

Advocates of stakeholder theory have long known that grasping its key insights requires a specific worldview that is, unfortunately, still not prevalent within the community of strategic management scholars. We argue that this worldview encompasses a process ontology that is radically different from the substance-ontological outlook typical of the mainstream approaches to strategic management. The unquestioned commitment of strategic management scholarship to a substance ontology leads to the viewing of corporations as macro-entities comprising aggregations of discrete autonomous actors each relying on individual choice and instrumental rationality. In contrast, within a process-ontological worldview, corporations and their stakeholders are seen to be sustained and attenuated through social practices and relationships involving interlocking chains of coping actions taken in everyday interactions. We show that adopting a process-ontological worldview presents a much-needed step that may help strategic management scholars reach a better understanding of how stakeholder theory deals with three problems of today's capitalism, those value creation and trade, ethics of capitalism, and managerial mindsets. On this basis, we discuss how to process ontology may lead stakeholder theory to further refine its understanding of business strategy, corporate social responsibility, and the common ground between the firm and stakeholders.     

The Application of Stakeholder Theory to Relationship Marketing Strategy Development in a Non-profit Organization

Non-profit (NP) organizations present complex challenges in managing stakeholder relationships, particularly during times of environmental change. This places a premium on knowing which stakeholders really matter if an effective relationship marketing strategy is to be developed. This article presents the successful application of a model, which combines Mitchell’s theory of stakeholder saliency and Coviello’s framework of contemporary marketing practices in a leading NP organization in the U.K. A cooperative enquiry approach is used to explore stakeholder relationships, dominant marketing practices, and to surface differing perceptions about the organization’s marketing strategy. Resolving these differences sets the scene for developing choices in marketing strategy for the future. Simon Knox is Professor of Brand Marketing at the Cranfield School of Management in the UK and is a consultant to a number of multinational companies including Levi Strauss, DiverseyLever, BT and Exel. Upon graduating, he followed a career in the marketing of international brands with Unilever plc in a number of senior marketing roles in both detergents and foods. Since joining Cranfield, Simon has published over 100 papers and books on strategic marketing and branding and is a regular speaker at international conferences. He is a Director of the Cranfield Centre for Brand Management Development in the School and is currently looking at the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Brand Management. He is the co-author of two recent books, "Competing on Value", published by FT Pitman Publishing in the UK, Germany, the USA and China, and "Creating a Company for Customers", FT Prentice-Hall, in the UK, Brazil and India. Colin Gruar is currently studying for his Doctorate of Business Administration at the School. His thesis is concerned with developing marketing strategy across stakeholder groups in the Not-for-Profit sector.Formerly Head of Marketing at a major UK medical research charity, Colin has also had senior roles in sales, marketing and operations management in a range of sectors including manufacturing, financial services and energy supply.     

Trust and Stakeholder Theory: Trustworthiness in the Organisation–Stakeholder Relationship

Trust is a fundamental aspect of the moral treatment of stakeholders within the organization–stakeholder relationship. Stakeholders trust the organization to return benefit or protections from harm commensurate with their contributions or stakes. However, in many situations, the firm holds greater power than the stakeholder and therefore cannot necessarily be trusted to return the aforementioned duty to the stakeholder. Stakeholders must therefore rely on the trustworthiness of the organization to fulfill obligations in accordance to Phillips’ principle of fairness (Business Ethics Quarterly 7(1), 1997, 51–66), particularly where low-power stakeholders may not be fully consenting (Van Buren III, Business Ethics Quarterly 11(3), 2001, 481–499). The construct of organizational trustworthiness developed herewith is presented as a possible solution to the problem of unfairness in organization–stakeholder relations. While organizational trustworthiness does not create an ethical obligation where none existed before, stakeholders who lack power will likely be treated fairly when organizational trustworthiness is present.     

利益相关者管理理论研究的主导逻辑与议题框架：基于Web of Science核心数据库的研究

企业竞争优势越来越依赖其所处的利益相关者之间的资源、权利及其关系,但现有的利益相关者管理理论研究视角各异,缺乏系统梳理。以文本分析方法为基础,基于Web of Science核心数据库的文献,系统论述了利益相关者研究的知识演进研究逻辑和主要议题框架。研究发现：从管理学视角看,利益相关者管理理论研究主要遵循“个体关系网络”的逻辑演进,并以相应的知识图谱聚类展开。利用重点文献对利益相关者研究的知识演进分析,进一步发现利益相关者管理理论的议题框架可分为利益相关者管理理论研究重要性、研究逻辑与主题、研究方法与机理研究;根据主体属性及个体、关系到网络的研究逻辑,需要分别从主体、关系和网络三个方面解决好利益相关者主体的个体属性、关系与网络的整体属性的割裂状态。     

Responsible Leadership,Stakeholder Engagement,and the Emergence of Social Capital

I argue in this article that responsible leadership (Maak and Pless, 2006) contributes to building social capital and ultimately to both a sustainable business and the common good. I show, first, that responsible leadership in a global stakeholder society is a relational and inherently moral phenomenon that cannot be captured in traditional dyadic leader–follower relationships (e.g., to subordinates) or by simply focusing on questions of leadership effectiveness. Business leaders have to deal with moral complexity resulting from a multitude of stakeholder claims and have to build enduring and mutually beneficial relationships with all relevant stakeholders. I contend, second, that in doing so leaders bundle the energy of␣different constituencies and enable social capital building. Social capital can be understood as actual or potential resources inherent to more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual recognition (Bourdieu 1980). By drawing on network analysis I suggest, third, that responsible leaders weave durable relational structures and ultimately networks of relationships which are rich in ties to otherwise unconnected individuals or groups. Against this background I argue, fourth, that responsible leadership may result in the creation of value networks (Lord and Brown, 2001) of multiple stakeholders, which enhance social capital and thereby contribute to both a sustainable business and the common good.

Social influence and stakeholder engagement behavior conformity,compliance, and reactance

Following the proliferation of customer engagement behavior research, rising interest is observed in marketing-based stakeholder engagement behavior, which covers any stakeholder's—including a customer's, employee's, firm's, supplier's, competitor's, and so forth—behavioral engagement in his/her role-related interactions, activities, and relationships. However, despite its importance, understanding of the stakeholder engagement behavior concept remains tenuous, is therefore addressed in this paper. We first conceptualize stakeholder engagement behavior as a stakeholder's behavioral manifestation toward his/her role-related interactions, activities, and relationships, followed by an exploration of the effect of influencor-exerted social influence on an influencee's stakeholder engagement behavior. We argue this effect to manifest as stakeholder engagement behavior conformity, -compliance, or -reactance, depending on the influencee's level of acceptance of the influencor's exerted influence. In turn, we propose stakeholder engagement behavior conformity, -compliance, and -reactance to yield cooperation, coopetition, or competition in the influencor/influencee relationship, respectively, as depicted in a conceptual model and an associated set of propositions. By investigating the interface of social influence, stakeholder engagement behavior, and its prevailing relational consequences (i.e., cooperation, coopetition, and competition), our analyses offer novel theoretical acumen and actionable managerial insight.     

Enabling Guanxi Management in China: A Hierarchical Stakeholder Model of Effective Guanxi

Guanxi (literally interpersonal connections) is in essence a network of resource coalition-based stakeholders sharing resources for survival, and it plays a key role in achieving business success in China. However, the salience of guanxi stakeholders varies: not all guanxi relationships are necessary, and among the necessary guanxi participants, not all are equally important. A hierarchical stakeholder model of guanxi is developed drawing upon Mitchell et al.’s (1997) stakeholder salience theory and Anderson’s (1982) constituency theory. As an application of instrumental stakeholder theory, the model dimensionalizes the notion of stakeholder salience, and distinguishes between and among internal and external guanxi, core, major, and peripheral guanxi, and primary and secondary guanxi stakeholders. Guanxi management principles are developed based on a hierarchy of guanxi priorities and management specializations. The goal of this application of instrumental stakeholder theory is to construct, for Western business firms in China, a means to reliably identify guanxi partners by employing the principles of effective guanxi. These principles are described in the form of testable propositions that advance social scientific research in this area of international business ethics. Chenting Su is Associate Professor of Marketing at City University of Hong Kong. He is also Adjunct Professor at Wuhan University, P.R. China. He previously taught at the University of Victoria, Canada, He writes for Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Business Ethics, Psychology & Marketing, International Journal of Market Research, Service Marketing Quarterly, Research in Marketing, and others. He presently serves as Executive Director of China Marketing Association, P.R. China. Ronald K. Mitchell is Professor of Entrepreneurship and J. A. Bagley Regents Chair in Management in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He publishes in the areas of new value creation and stakeholder theory. From 1999–2002 he held a joint appointment in strategy and public policy in the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, Beijing, PRC. He has won numerous awards for research and program building; presently serves in the leadership of the AOM Entrepreneurship Division; and is Co-Editor for the Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice three-volume Special Issue on Entrepreneurial Cognition. Joe Sirgy is Professor of Marketing and Virginia Real Estate Research Fellow at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the area of business ethics and quality-of-life (QOL) research in relation to theory, philosophy, measurement, business, and public policy. He co-founded the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) in 1995 and is currently serving as its Executive Director. He received the Distinguished Fellow Award from both the Academy of Marketing Science and ISQOLS. In 2003, ISQOLS recognized him as the Distinguished QOL Researcher for research excellence and a record of lifetime achievement in QOL research. He also is the current JMM section editor on QOL issues and a co-editor of Applied Research in Quality of Life.     

Engaging and marketing to stakeholders in World Heritage Site management: a United Kingdom multiple case study perspective

ABSTRACT

This research addresses the limited studies which apply stakeholder theory to World Heritage Site (WHS) management and managerial theory to heritage management. WHS management highlights a context where sites rely on numerous interests uniting through goodwill. This is intensified by the multiple-ownership patterns which characterise many WHSs, necessitating a need for collective action. This study aims to explore how managers attempt to manage stakeholders and generate involvement and support. This study adopts a multiple case study approach, exploring three United Kingdom WHSs. Data were collected through interviews, documentation and physical artefacts. The analysis found that through representation, raising awareness and support, managers were able to generate stakeholder patronage. However, this required managers to look beyond informative engagement toward participatory means. Furthermore, the findings highlight the importance of the facilitators, time and money in successful stakeholder engagement. Lastly, conclusions, limitations and future research are offered. Underpinned by stakeholder theory, this paper contributes to the understanding of stakeholder engagement within WHS management and adds to limited empirical studies on multiple sites. This investigation found that engagement is constrained by managers’ limited time and resources. Furthermore, participatory engagement is essential in fostering stakeholders’ responsibility for site management and developing relationships with managers.     

Sleeping with the Enemy? Strategic Transformations in Business–NGO Relationships Through Stakeholder Dialogue

Campaigning activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have increased public awareness and concern regarding the alleged unethical and environmentally damaging practices of many major multinational companies. Companies have responded by developing corporate social responsibility strategies to demonstrate their commitment to both the societies within which they function and to the protection of the natural environment. This has often involved a move towards greater transparency in company practice and a desire to engage with stakeholders, often including many of the campaign organisations that have been at the forefront of the criticisms of their activity. This article examines the ways in which stakeholder dialogue has impacted upon the relationships between NGOs and businesses. In doing so, it contributes to the call for more ‘stakeholder-focused’ research in this field (Frooman in Acad Manag Rev 24(2): 191–205, 1999; Steurer in Bus Strategy Environ 15: 15–69 2006). By adopting a stakeholder lens, and focusing more heavily upon the impact on one particular stakeholder community (NGOs) and looking in depth at one form of engagement (stakeholder dialogue), this article examines how experiences of dialogue are strategically transforming interactions between businesses and NGOs. It shows how experiences of stakeholder dialogue have led to transformations in the drivers for engagement, transformations in the processes of engagement and transformations in the terms of engagement. Examining these areas of transformation, the article argues, reveals the interactions at play in framing and shaping the evolving relationships between business and its stakeholders.     

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.     

From Stakeholder Management to Stakeholder Accountability

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). Andreas Rasche is currently working at the chair for Business Administration at the Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg, Germany and is finishing his PhD in strategic management at EUROPEAN BUSINESS SCHOOL, Germany where he is also teaching business ethics. His research interests include the institutionalization of ethics initiatives in multinational corporations (see also www.ethics-in-pratice.org) and reflections about the theory of strategic management. Daniel Esser until recently was a Tutorial Fellow in Development Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is now working for the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific where he is involved in the design and management of urban governance programmes and service schemes supporting the poverty reduction agenda for the region.     

Tracing stakeholder terminology then and now: Convergence and new pathways

Over the past four decades, stakeholder research has united a chorus of voices from different disciplines using different terminology for different audiences all related to a seemingly similar topic: those that affect and are affected by business. By juxtaposing a comprehensive review of the early years of stakeholder research against more recent stakeholder research, we identify areas of common convergence (a focus on relationships and Freeman's definition of a stakeholder) as well as emergent scholarship (mechanisms underlying stakeholder relationships and solutions-oriented impacts). We develop an organizing framework consisting of three stakeholder-related themes: who or what is a stakeholder; mechanisms underlying stakeholder relationships; and outcomes-oriented stakeholder research. Future research opportunities include: simultaneously examining multiple stakeholders at multiple levels; multiplier effects along the value chain and across geographies; and net impacts (examining whether net positive benefits inclusive of negative outcomes exist). We conclude by identifying how stakeholder research can “move the needle” on important business issues such as: income inequality and CEO pay; human rights and building community inclusion; disease alleviation; and food security in firms’ continuous quest to create value.     

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。