Virtual stewardship in the age of new media: have nonprofit organizations' moved beyond Web 1.0 strategies?

• Stewardship has been identified as an important relationship cultivation strategy. The four dimensions of stewardship—reciprocity, responsibility, reporting, and relationship nurturing—consist of one‐way and two‐way messaging strategies that can be carried out in a variety of manners on the Internet using both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technologies. Through a content analysis of the Nonprofit Times 100 organizations, this study found that nonprofit organizations overwhelmingly prefer to use their website to cultivate relationships with their stakeholders with stewardship strategies. Despite the hype of social media technologies, including Facebook, there remain many significant questions and obstacles to seeing nonprofits truly embrace social media communication.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Segmenting nonprofit stakeholders to enable successful relationship marketing: a review

• When establishing relationships with stakeholders, nonprofit organizations must define appropriate target groups to allocate resources purposively. This paper explicates that link by reviewing the literature on nonprofit stakeholder segmentation and by discussing whether stakeholder segmentation is perceived as a prerequisite of successful relationship marketing by nonprofit researchers.
• We develop two conceptual dimensions of nonprofit stakeholder segmentation: the stakeholders segmented and the segmentation criteria used. A systematic database and journal search yielded 53 papers, categorized according to these two dimensions. The studies are described briefly, and the relevance of the relationship marketing concept is examined and discussed. Several research gaps emerge from this review, leading to propositions for further research.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health nonprofits online: the use of frames and stewardship strategies to increase stakeholder involvement

• This study examines connections between the conceptual frameworks of compassion fatigue (burnout toward social issues) and related stewardship strategies that are used as a form of best practices to address the issue of compassion fatigue. A content analysis of 117 health nonprofit websites (457 web pages) investigates how nonprofit health organization websites are framing their communication to various stakeholders and how the strategies of stewardship are employed online. Findings indicate that although health nonprofits are using positive frames and multiple stewardship strategies, more could be done by nonprofit marketing practitioners to facilitate positive, long-term relationships with stakeholders in an environment of increased communication and compassion fatigue.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relational care in communication as the basis of nonprofit fundraising: Theorizing professional ethics based in stewardship and ethics of care

At its core, fundraising is relationship building. Therefore, ethical fundraising requires cultivating genuine, care-based relationships between various stakeholders by considering relational goals and communicative practices. We advance an ethics of care-oriented approach toward fundraising based in nurturing authentic relationships with multiple organizational stakeholders, including donors, employees, beneficiaries, and volunteers. Drawing upon ethics of care and stewardship scholarship based in public relations, the purpose of this article is to propose relational care in communication through dialogue as an ethical springboard of nonprofit fundraising.     

Strategic stakeholder orientations and performance consequences—a case of private nonprofit performing arts in the US

• This paper borrows a market orientation perspective in considering how organizations behave toward stakeholders and the implications on performance in the institutional performing arts environment. To investigate the relationship between stakeholder orientations and organizational performance, both interviews and a survey instrument were used. Using nonprofit performing arts organizations in three metropolitan areas of Northwestern US as a sample frame, primary data was collected from leading directors of these organizations. The results generally indicate a positive relationship between stakeholder orientation and organizational performance. Complex relationships between dimensions of stakeholder orientation and performance consequences were also observed.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Online stakeholder targeting and the acquisition of social media capital

• The diffusion of social media has opened new possibilities for targeted stakeholder communication and, with it, new forms of organizational resources. This article examines the nexus between social media-based stakeholder communication and the acquisition of social media-based resources, referred to here as social media capital. After laying out a conceptual mapping of both targeted stakeholder communication and social media capital, the article turns to an inductive analysis of the relationship between the messages 117 US community foundations are sending to their core stakeholders on Twitter and subsequent levels of social media capital. The article thus contributes to the existing literature by elaborating new forms of targeted stakeholder communication, a new type of organizational resource, and the relationship between the two.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stakeholder Governance for Responsible Innovation: A Theory of Value Creation,Appropriation, and Distribution

In the face of intractable societal grand challenges, organizations increasingly resort to responsible innovation – that is, they pledge to create value for multiple stakeholders through developing new products or services that avoid doing harm and improve conditions for people and the planet. While the link between responsible innovation and societal improvements has been established, organizations pursuing responsible innovation lack governance mechanisms to guide the allocation of the value created – both economic and social – among heterogeneous stakeholders, in line with their responsible intent. We combine the value-based strategy and stakeholder perspectives and infuse a deliberative process to design a three-stage model of value allocation that rests on three key organizational decisions: i) what value to create and for whom, ii) how to appropriate the value created vis-à-vis unintended value appropriators, and iii) how to distribute the value appropriated among intended stakeholders. We propose a framework of stakeholder governance comprised of four novel mechanisms by which organizations can allocate value among their multiple principal stakeholders as part of participative processes. Our study contributes to responsible innovation and corporate governance research by unpacking how new value is managed to solve societal grand challenges.     

An exploratory study of stewardship for Chinese nonprofit organizations

This study examined how Chinese nonprofits practice stewardship and how stewardship principles influence nonprofit–donor relationships and donor retention. Fifteen qualitative in‐depth interviews were conducted with experienced fundraisers in China. Results showed that Kelly's stewardship principles were applicable in China; Chinese fundraisers practiced stewardship principles of reciprocity, responsibility, reporting, and relationship nurturing to maintain relationships with major gift and annual donors. Besides, practitioners also utilized a variety of communication channels, ranging from face‐to‐face, telephones, emails, to digital shared media such as WeChat and Weibo, in communicating with individual and general public donors. Finally, interviewees also provided evidence on the positive role of quality nonprofit–donor relationships in retaining donors. This study illustrated the current status of nonprofit fundraising practice in China and expanded the explanatory power of the stewardship theory. The findings are implicative for Chinese nonprofits professionals on how to develop their unique stewardship practice in managing relationships with donors.     

Developing Stakeholder Theory

Previous literature has led to a lack of appreciation of: the range of organization/stakeholder relations that can occur; the extent to which such relations change over time; as well as how and why such changes occur. In particular, extremely negative and highly conflicting relations between organizations and stakeholders have been ignored. Due to this lack of appreciation it is argued that current attempts at integrating the separate strands of stakeholder theory to achieve a convergent stakeholder theory are premature. A model is presented which combines stakeholder theory with a realist theory of social change and differentiation. This model is intended to highlight why it is important to distinguish different stakeholders. The model also enables an analysis of the organization/stakeholder relationship, which is not exclusively from the organization perspective and which is capable of illuminating why and how organization/stakeholder relations change over time. The history of Greenpeace is used as an example.     

Communicating “pink”: an analysis of the communication strategies,transparency, and credibility of breast cancer social media sites

In public relations, the social media explosion has significantly impacted how organizations communicate to their various publics through sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Although previous studies have investigated dialogic communication and relationship building strategies in organizations, few have carried out this in terms of an organization's overall social media presence, especially with nonprofits. Research has found most nonprofits are not taking full advantage of social media. Moreover, the organizations that did use social media typically employed one‐way communication strategies focusing primarily on information dissemination. This study quantitatively analyzed the transparency and credibility of breast cancer nonprofits are participating on social media sites, specifically Facebook and Twitter, and how these sites affect perceptions of credibility and transparency. Overall, most top breast cancer nonprofits are active on both Twitter and Facebook but differ in terms of activity, credibility, and transparency. Organizations that tweeted more had more “likes”, more followers, and more overall tweets and were seen to be more transparent and credible by virtue of activity alone. This study also found a strong relationship between the transparency and credibility of the organization. Therefore, organizations need to use social media sites not only to communicate with their audiences but also to engage in dialogue on a regular basis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mind the Gap: A Journey to Sustainable Supply Chains

Many companies still view Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as solely philanthropy rather than addressing their material issues. A few companies that have began to see the strategic advantages of being socially responsible and addressing their social, environmental and economic challenges. Developing an effective strategy can reward companies with reputation enhancement, license to operate, avoiding litigation, recruitment and retention of employees and developing process, product and strategic innovations. One company who has realized the value of investing and integrating CSR into the business model is the apparel retailer Gap Inc. This article will examine the evolution of Gap Inc. and its work developing an effective labor standards assurance program and stakeholder engagement strategy transformed historically adversarial relationships with key stakeholders into collaborative multi-stakeholder partnerships. Particular attention is put towards Gap Inc.’s learnings in the process and how these new insights innovated the company’s CSR strategy over time. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Benchmarking the fundraising performance of UK charities

• The cost of fundraising and its effectiveness are issues of increasing importance in the UK nonprofit sector. Measuring fundraising effectiveness properly is critical to organisations on two fronts. From a financial stewardship perspective, charities need to ensure that their fundraising is as efficient as possible. From a public relations perspective they need to be able to demonstrate this to donors and our other stakeholders. There are many problems to be overcome in objectively judging a charity's performance relative to other nonprofit organisations. There are significant methodological barriers to be overcome to produce valid and meaningful comparisons. The well established Fundratios study shows that it is feasible to construct a methodology for robust benchmarking underpinned by good quality data which charities can use as a tool to inform the management of their fundraising activities.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Board gender diversity and environmental,social, and economic value creation: Does family ownership matter?

Prior literature on firm value creation for stakeholders has oversimplified and narrowed the concept of value down to “economic returns.” Although economic returns are fundamental to a firm's core stakeholders (i.e., shareholders), other legitimate stakeholders want “value” beyond economic returns. We define stakeholder value as the financial and nonfinancial returns a firm can offer to its legitimate stakeholders, and empirically investigate whether board gender diversity (BGD) improves our multidimensional measure of value. Using Thomson Reuters' ASSET4 data for U.K.‐listed firms available from Eikon for the period 2007–2017, we report a significant positive relationship between BGD and stakeholder value creation. In particular, BGD increases social and environmental value creation in addition to economic returns. Furthermore, our results suggest that even though gender‐diverse boards are associated with stakeholder value creation in family firms, this is only conspicuous for environmental value creation. The findings suggest that although female directors cater to the interests of broader stakeholder groups, family ownership causes them to mainly focus on environmental stakeholders. The study provides important implications for regulators, stakeholders, and academic scholars.     

Pathways of stakeholder influence in the Canadian forestry industry

We draw on the stakeholder influence literature to propose and empirically test hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect pathways of perceived influence that stakeholders exercise within the domain of corporate sustainability. Our results allow us to examine the interaction between different types of stakeholder pressure and different types of stakeholder influence strategy. We show that stakeholders who do not control resources critical to the focal firm's operations are able to pressure a firm indirectly via other stakeholders on whose resources the firm is dependent. We contribute to the stakeholder perspective by showing how stakeholders who are affected by the focal firm's operations can enhance their salience via stakeholders who can affect the firm. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Brexit deal and demographics drag on long-term outlook

• ▀ We have revised down our long-term forecast for GDP growth based largely on our expectation that the UK is headed for a much looser relationship with the EU. This will result in damage to trade and lower FDI inflows.
• ▀ We now expect potential output growth to slow to 1.4% a year from 2020–2030 down from 1.6% a year from 2010–2020. In the two decades after 2030 we expect the drag from Brexit-related effects to fade, but weaker contributions in labour supply and human capital will cut output growth to 1.2% a year.
• ▀ Demographics have been a key contributor to potential output growth over the past 30 years. But an ageing population and a more restrictive immigration regime are likely to mean the workforce grows far more slowly in the future.
• ▀ Our long-term growth forecast is weaker than the OBR's and implies that future governments will face a combination of disappointing growth in tax revenues and increasing demands for government spending from an ageing population.

     

Stakeholder communication in service implementation networks: expanding relationship management theory to the nonprofit sector through organizational network analysis

• Nonprofits increasingly participate in government-funded service implementation networks (SINs). However, extant research does not explore how organizations might strategically tailor communication to different stakeholder groups or use different communication tools for management. Stakeholders are not a monolithic group, and communicating with stakeholders within SINs is hypothesized to involve different forms of communication than communicating with stakeholders outside of the network. In this paper, relationship management theory is used to examine strategic communication with stakeholder groups within and outside of SINs. Both traditional and emergent (e.g., social media) forms of communication are examined. Survey and interview data on communication within and outside communication networks are analyzed using organizational network analysis techniques. The findings indicate strategic communication in the network differs from strategic communication with stakeholders outside the network. Within the network, organizations place varying emphasis on the use of traditional and emergent forms of communication for management, implying nonprofit managers funded under government grants continue to rely on face-to-face and phone communication and have yet to adopt emerging communication strategies to assist in the management of their programs with their partner organizations.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining how advocacy groups build relationships on the Internet

• In 2006, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) became American law after brief Congressional discussions despite the public outcries from animal rights organizations. The AETA made it a federal terrorist crime to harm any animal enterprise financially, which could include legal forms of protests and boycotts. Members of the “Stop AETA” coalition failed to draw attention to the legislation. The relationship management theory of public relations provides a framework to determine how well the coalition members developed relationships with like‐minded individuals and the media. Results from a content analysis of the coalition members' Web sites revealed that nonprofit organizations and citizen‐advocacy groups attempted to develop relationships through a variety of strategies, including making the visit a positive experience, being open and transparent in their advocacy efforts, and providing access to coalition leaders. The results suggest that the coalition was unable to generate much news coverage for the issue because coalition members did not sufficiently reach out to cultivate relationships with journalists. Specific suggestions are provided for future advocacy groups to use the Internet to develop and cultivate relationships with key stakeholder groups.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stakeholder Relationship Bonds

Scholars and managers continue to seek a better explanation for the behaviours displayed by various stakeholders. An enhanced understanding of the drivers of these behaviours ought to improve an organization's ability to appropriately manage relationships with stakeholders, thereby improving firm performance. This paper provides a detailed look at the concept of a relationship, from the perspective of the stakeholder, by focusing on the perceived psychological bonds that drive a stakeholder to decide whether to continue a relationship with the firm and, if the relationship does continue, how much pro‐relationship behaviour to exert. Our analysis works out how the strength of the perceived psychological bond is measured and establishes the conditions under which bonds will be broken. We also develop conditions that either promote or quash stakeholders’ pro‐relationship behaviour.     

An investigation of the giving behavior of loyal,lapsed, and non‐givers to a religious organization

• This paper provides a comparative study of the giving behavior of current donors (CDs), lapsed donors (LDs), and non‐donors (NDs) in a Catholic diocese in New England. Focus groups were conducted and surveys were administered to Catholics to compare the attitudes and behaviors of lapsed and active donors as well as those who had not given to a recent diocesan annual campaign. The results show significant differences between the groups. Active donors indicate a much greater level of satisfaction with the church, are more aware of its programs, and feel they are more recognized for their gifts than do lapsed or NDs. These findings suggest that relationship fundraising, and creating trust, are critical to forging and maintaining valued donor relationships. The program implemented by the diocese as a result of the study is described.
• Marketing for religious organizations
• Lapsed donors
• Nonprofit marketing
• Marketing for churches

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporate Contributions As Managerial Masques: Reframing Corporate Contributions As Strategies to Influence Society*

Researchers have argued that corporate contributions serve as necessitated investments, social currency, or social responsibility efforts. This article integrates and extends these perspectives to develop a view of corporate contributions as managerial masques. It argues that managers use corporate contributions to influence various stakeholders including stockholders, consumers, employees, investors, publics and societal institutions. A strategic framework is used to explore how managers promote managerial and corporate interests through corporate contributions. the societal implications of managers' discretionary uses of corporate contributions are also discussed.