The Environment as Stakeholder

Because they have no voice, the environment and future generations are all too often ignored in decision-making, both at the macroeconomic level and in the firm. This article makes the case for explicit recognition of these interests as stakeholders. At the level of the firm this might be done through the appointment of a non-executive "Environment Director" with specific responsibility.     

Toward a Contemporary Conceptual Framework for Stakeholder Theory

Atomic individualism is embedded in most definitions of stakeholder theory, and as a result, stakeholders are not integral to the basic identity of the corporation which is considered to be independent of, and separate from, its stakeholders. Feminist theory has been suggested as a way of developing a more relational view of the corporation and its stakeholders, but it lacks a systematically developed conceptual framework for undergirding its own insights. Pragmatic philosophy is offered as a way of providing this theoretical undergirding for ^. a relational understanding of the firm and its stakeholders.     

Managing CSR Stakeholder Engagement: A New Conceptual Framework

As concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue to evolve, the predicament facing CSR managers when attempting to balance the differing interests of various stakeholders remains a persistent management challenge. A review of the extensive literature in this field reveals that the conceptualisation of corporate approaches to responsible stakeholder management remains underdeveloped. In particular, CSR practices within the specific context of the pharmaceutical industry, a sector which particularly dramatically depicts the stakeholder management dilemmas faced by business managers, has been under-researched. To address this gap, this paper utilises qualitative, exploratory data, obtained via multiple research methods, to investigate the CSR practices of major pharmaceutical companies in the UK and Germany. The data are employed to critically re-examine and revise a previously published explanatory framework which identifies the management steps involved in CSR stakeholder engagement. The resulting revised explanatory framework is the main contribution of this paper. By abstracting those factors which influence CSR practice, it provides an analytical tool which is designed to be of practical use for business decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. Given that the research addresses values and ideals and prescribes practical recommendations for practitioners, it is essentially applied and normative in nature. Ultimately, the framework proposes a set of steps for developing CSR strategies which could help CSR professionals to make a ‘mindset transition’ from a narrower ‘traditional’ approach to CSR to a more innovative way of thinking.     

Managing Brand in the New Stakeholder Environment

The corporate sustainability, and responsibility, movement has considerable implications for and impact on the discipline of brand management. It creates pressures to which the discipline must adjust, and new growth opportunities for it to enjoy.In Maio's view, "brand" permeates all aspects of the corporation and therefore the values of the brand can serve as an effective touchstone for all corporate behaviours: in the Boardroom, in financial markets, in negotiations with employees, in customer interactions, in dialogue with other stakeholders. Moreover, most corporations already have "plumbing" in place (the organizational substructures and processes to manage their brand), that can serve as effective conduits for nurturing values-driven behaviours and measuring them.     

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.     

Character and Environment: The Status of Virtues in Organizations

Using evidence from experimental psychology, some social psychologists, moral philosophers and organizational scholars claim that character traits do not exist and, hence, that the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics is empirically inadequate and should dispose of the notion of character to accommodate the empirical evidence. In this paper, I systematically address the debate between dispositionalists and situationists about the existence, status and properties of character traits and their manifestations in human behavior, with the ultimate goal of responding to the question whether virtue ethicists need to abandon the very enterprise of building a character-based moral theory in business ethics and organizational behavior. In the course of this paper, I shall defend the claim that the situationist argument relies on a misinterpretation of the experimental evidence. Miguel Alzola is a Fulbright Fellow from Argentina completing his Ph.D. in Business Ethics at Rutgers University. He is doing research on moral psychology, virtue ethics and organizational behavior at the Prudential Business Ethics Center.     

A Conceptual Foundation for Ethical Decision Making: A Stakeholder Perspective in the Lodging Industry (U.S.A.)

The purpose of this study was to build upon previous ethical research; thereby, advancing the hospitality industry's understanding of ethical decision making in lodging operations. In particular, this study reviewed: (a) the primary normative ethical precepts (i.e., egoism, benevolence, and principle) used as a criterion in ethical decision making, and (b) the predominant locus of analysis (e.g., individual, local, or cosmopolitan referent sources) used in applying ethical precepts to ethical decisions.The sample consisted of 500 lodging operations as randomly abstracted from the 1994 Hotel Travel Index produced by Reed Travel. The researcher selected full service, limited service, or as rooms-only lodging operations throughout the United States. A full service property offered guest rooms, meeting rooms, and food and beverage services. A limited service property offered a continental breakfast, small meeting facilities, and guest sleeping rooms. A rooms-only property only offered guest rooms. This purposive sampling process resulted in 198 usable surveys.The responding general managers indicated that: (a) benevolence was the primary ethical precept impacting ethical decision making in the lodging organization, (b) the predominant locus of analysis emanated from a cosmopolitan perspective, which was external to the organization, and, (c) an individual's educational level of attainment and length of experience in the industry interacted with the ethical precept used.     

The Stakeholder Approach: A Sustainability Perspective

This article considers the stakeholder approach (SHA) to organisational management through the lens of what it means for humans to live sustainably on the Earth (that is, for there to be a sustainable world). In particular, the article considers if the SHA, as it is presented in mainstream academic and management literature, is supportive of corporate practices that advance the achievement of a sustainable world. The analysis shows the SHA to have significant failings in this regard when viewed against key sustainable world criteria, with issues of concern evident from the normative core of the SHA through to is practical application in the management setting.     

城市自然灾害应急救助评估体系与概念模型研究

城市自然灾害是一种突发性强、破坏性较大、处置救助较为困难的灾害之一,给城市居民生命安全及城市基础设施建设带来重大损失。依据自然灾害应急理论,阐述了城市自然灾害应急救助概念及内容,并构建了城市自然灾害应急救助评估概念框架、指标体系,利用加权综合评价法、层次分析法建立城市自然灾害应急救助评估模型及评价技术流程,为城市自然灾害应急评估定量评价研究提供了依据。     

Beyond Stakeholder Utility Function: Stakeholder Capability in the Value Creation Process

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.     

The Stakeholder Model: The Influence of the Ownership and Governance Structures

This paper addresses the possibilities to introduce the stakeholder model in the firm, especially the possibility to give property or decision rights to stakeholders. This paper argues that it is not practical to give full property rights to more than one group of stakeholders. Decision rights to employees and creditors are already in place in some countries, but the possibility to introduce them more generally to other stakeholder groups depends very much on the governance and ownership structure of the firm and the legal environment. The future of the stakeholder model in a globalised economy is also analysed.Eva Jansson is currently associate professor of managerial economics at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona. She holds a BA in statistics from the University of Stockholm and graduated in economics from Universitat of Barcelona. She holds a Ph.D. from Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona. Her research interests have been in fiscal policy, regulations of service sectors and recently topics in corporate governance. Special interest has been given to international comparison of ownership structures, changes in ownership structure of Spanish firms and to the evolution of ownership structures of privatized Spanish firms. Recent works include topics on the stakeholder model.     

Internal Service Quality and the Psychosocial Work Environment: An Empirical Analysis of Conceptual Interrelatedness

There is a need to integrate service quality concepts withconcepts from other research fields, such as the psychosocialwork environment, to help us better understand and create abasis for quality control in services. The main aim of this paperis to explore empirically the relationships between thepsychosocial work environment and internal service qualily. Weuse concepts and measures derived from psychosocial workenvironment theory and service quality theory respectively. Datawere collected from 555 employees in a Swedish computerservice company using questions from a Stress Profile as well as from a Quality Profile. All 52 items from the Stress Projile and20 items from the Quality Profile were entered into a factoranalysis. The main result of the study is not the exact outcome ofthe factor analysis per se, but rather the point that questionsderived from two different research fields appear to measuredifferent mental representations of work conditions. Clearly,interdependence exists between the psyclzosocial workenvironment and internal quality. It is quite concmon to ncap adrestructure service processes in order to improve internal qualityin an attempt to solve quality problems created by organisationalchanges. We suggest that it should be equally inportant to takenieasures to increase work satisfaction by improvingpsychosocial work conditions.     

The Stakeholder Theory and the Common Good

The theory of the social responsibility of the firm oscillates between two extremes: one that reduces the firm's responsibility to the obtainment of (the greatest possible) profit for its shareholders, and another that extends the firm's responsibility to include a wide range of actors with an interest or "stake" in the firm. The stakeholder theory of the social responsibility of business is more appealing from an ethical point of view, and yet it lacks a solid foundation that would be acceptable to a variety of schools of thought. In this paper I argue that the stakeholder theory could be founded on the concept of the common good. First, I explain the foundations of the theory of the common good, the concept itself, how it relates to the individual good, and its role in the firm. Following that, I explain how the theory of the common good could be applied to the stakeholder theory. Finally, I draw some conclusions.     

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.     

Ecology-Driven Real Options: An Investment Framework for Incorporating Uncertainties in the Context of the Natural Environment

The role of uncertainty within an organization’s environment features prominently in the business ethics and management literature, but how corporate investment decisions should proceed in the face of uncertainties relating to the natural environment is less discussed. From the perspective of ecological economics, the salience of ecology-induced issues challenges management to address new types of uncertainties. These pertain to constraints within the natural environment as well as to institutional action aimed at conserving the natural environment. We derive six areas of ecology-induced uncertainties and propose ecology-driven real options as a conceptual approach for systematically incorporating these uncertainties into strategic management. We combine our results in an integrative investment framework and illustrate its application with the case of carbon constraints.     

Stakeholder Theory and Managerial Decision-Making: Constraints and Implications of Balancing Stakeholder Interests

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.     

The Future of Stakeholder Management Theory: A Temporal Perspective

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 inter-firm 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.     

邵阳烟草物流信息系统现状分析与思考

本文结合邵阳烟草物流信息系统的现状,对邵阳烟草物流信息系统中存在的问题进行了具体的分析和思考,创造性的提出了一些实际问题的解决方案。