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.     

What motivates professional service firm employees to nurture client dialogues?

Dialogues between professionals and their clients are at the core of relationship marketing of professional service firms. To nurture dialogues, professionals need to extend the scope of the dialogue to new issues that impact the client organization's performance. We develop and examine (N?=?431) a model grounded in the theory of planned behavior to highlight factors that impact the willingness of professionals to initiate the extension of client dialogues. Three main results are found. First, affective and instrumental attitudes are distinct and different motivational antecedents that simultaneously impact willingness. Second, affective and instrumental attitude are intermediate psychological considerations shaped by extrinsic rewards, reciprocal relationships, and client relationship quality. Third, organizational pressure operates indirectly by instilling a personal professional norm to extend client dialogues.     

Assessing the Impact of Public–Private Partnerships in the Global South: The Case of the Kasur Tanneries Pollution Control Project

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitiveness. We start with the commonly held view that firm competitiveness is defined by the market. That is, the question of what are the critical competitiveness factors is answered by looking at how companies and financial analysts describe and evaluate a firm. To analyze this, we review the current state of the art on the relationship between CSR and competitiveness. Second, CSR criteria used by financial analysts is identified and compared with company valuation methods. Third, the results of a multi-stakeholder dialogue on CSR and competitiveness of the European financial sector are presented. As a conclusion, we argue that CSR and competitiveness relate through a learning and innovation cycle, where corporate values, policies and practices are permanently defined and re-defined. Thus, we propose that learning takes place as CSR is embedded in business processes, and that once it has been integrated, in turn, it generates innovative practices, and finally, competitiveness. At the end of the paper, we propose that CSR in practice consists of managing inherent paradoxes generated by the tension between CSR and business policies.     

Stakeholder dialogue and organisational learning: changing relationships between companies and NGOs

This article presents a critical examination of the process of stakeholder dialogue in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) field. It utilises data from a three-year research project into stakeholder dialogue processes to discuss three central themes: first, what is meant by the term 'dialogue', both from a theoretical perspective and from its practical application within CSR; second, the challenges of creating effective dialogue; and third, measuring and assessing the potential outcomes of dialogue. In providing a critical overview of these themes, the article examines the nature of organisational learning through stakeholder engagement and dialogue. It questions the motives behind engagement in dialogue and highlights some of the potential challenges for organisational learning posed by opting for a stakeholder dialogue approach. It argues that organisations engaging in stakeholder dialogue must have a clear understanding of the implications of undertaking a dialogue process and have a long-term perspective regarding the outcomes and learning likely to emerge from it. While stakeholder dialogue may produce significant results, it is argued, many of these may be difficult to quantify on a short-term basis.     

The Buyer–Supplier Relationship: An Integrative Model of Ethics and Trust

Dialogues between companies and actors of society often start as a result of a public scandal or in a situation of crisis. They can lead to short-term public relations activism or to long-term reputation gains. On the basis of cases and of a typology of forms of dialogues, the author develops ethical criteria and conditions for a successful dialogue – the ethical basis for such criteria being values such as equality, freedom and participation. A special focus is put on challenges that often result from dialogues such as the ethical judgment of compromises. This article proposes ethical criteria to evaluate compromises. This leads to a model of ethical dialogue.     

Social Contracting in a Pluralist Process of Moral Sense Making: A Dialogic Twist on the ISCT

This paper applies Wempe’s (2005, Business Ethics Quarterly 15(1), 113–135) boundary conditions that define the external and internal logics for contractarian business ethics theory, as a system of argumentation for evaluating current or prospective institutional arrangements for arriving at the “good life,” based on the principles and practices of social justice. It does so by showing that a more dynamic, process-oriented, and pluralist ‘dialogic twist’ to Donaldson and Dunfee’s (2003, ‘Social Contracts: sic et non’, in P. Heugens, H. van Oosterhout and J. Vromen (eds.), The Social Institutions of Capitalism: Evolution and Design of Social Contracts (Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd.) pp. 109–126; 1999, Ties that Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics (Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press); 1995, Economics and Philosophy 11(1), 85–112; 1994, Academy of Management Review 19(2), 252–284.) integrated social contracting theory (ISCT) of economic ethics will further develop this promising and influential approach to moral reasoning, ethical decision-making, and stakeholder governance. This evolutionary, interactive learning-based model of ethical norm generation via dialogic stakeholder engagement is particularly appropriate within economic communities that are experiencing value conflict and pressures for institutional change.Jerry M. Calton is Professor of Management at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. His research interests encompass multi-stakeholder learning dialogue, trust-based network governance, and the social contracting approach to ethical decision-making. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, Business Ethics Quarterly, the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, and elsewhere.     

We need to talk about strategy: How to conduct effective strategic dialogue

As researchers and consultants, we have spent the last few years helping a dozen major public and private organizations understand what went wrong with their strategic planning. We discovered that executives have a hard time with strategy because they are at a loss when the time comes to engage in strategic dialogue. Either their teams debate the organization’s values and goals when such issues should be settled, or they waste time on the details of specific projects that have yet to receive the green light. But whether the conversation is too broad or too narrow, strategy stays out of view. Drawing on recent developments in strategy-as-practice and decision-making literature, we propose a model that executives can follow to take control of strategy meetings and keep their teams on track. We ask them to focus on the right decision purpose, adjust the meeting’s communication style, and cast the right leader for the job. When these three simple rules are followed, the pillars of successful dialogue are aligned, and executives can finally talk about what matters most to them: strategy.     

Industry and agency views of social media: Issues implementing dialogic communication

The technologies and culture of social media present issues for organisations implementing dialogic communication. The ubiquity of social media and the dialogic nature of communications in the digital age are raising awareness of the necessity of a total stakeholder approach to integrated communications. Yet, while the Marketing discipline argues that dialogic communication represent communication par excellence, this research finds that implementing a total stakeholder approach to dialogic communication is proving to be extremely elusive for many organisations exploring social media applications. The empirical findings of this research explore how marketing and communications professionals from a diverse range of industry and agency role contexts view social media, and presents issues that organisations face in implementing dialogic communication. It is suggested that these implementation issues inhibit the ability of organisations to move beyond ‘control’ and implement a total stakeholder approach to social media for dialogic communication that can engage with an organisation's stakeholders to gain their support.     

Setting the Context: The Role Information Technology in a Business Ethics Course Based on Face-to-Face Dialogue

Based on the experience of a course taught by the authors, this paper seeks to show that an adequate use of IT in the teaching of a Business Ethics (BE) course depends on clarifying the assumptions about ethics and the place of the course within a programme. For this purpose it explains how IT can be used to strengthen a view of BE based on dialogue and mutual learning and it encourages the combination between virtual and face-to-face teaching. Finally, the paper examines the relationship between the use of IT, individual learning processes and communities of practice.     

Informal information flows in organizations: The role of the Italian coffee break

Research on information flows within companies has focused on codified formalized information management tools. In practice, it is questionable whether IT-based management systems for storing and disseminating internal information in organizations are sufficiently used by the staff. As an alternative to centralized forms and instruments of information management, there are also informal and dialogic forms, such as the “coffee break” well known in Latin companies: employees come together spontaneously and thus contribute to “natural” internal fluid information circulation. Based on an empirical study conducted in Italian companies, this paper describes essential functions of the coffee break – as a dynamic inter-divisional and heterarchic organizational practice: these include coordination of work processes, confidence building, networking, problem solving, and extension of the meta-knowledge on organizational processes and structures. The paper contributes to the literature on information management by taking into account contextual elements.     

The Ethical Frameworks of Social Media Policies Among U.S. Nonprofit Organizations: Legal Expectations,Dialogic Prescriptions,and a Dialectical Model

Nonprofit organizations are experiencing a new world of fundraising, marketing, and stakeholder engagement on a scale previously unseen and due largely to social media. This study investigated the extent to which nonprofits craft social media policies using ethical frameworks to guide online activity mindful of this new reality. Assessing the top 100 U.S. nonprofits and their social media policies, this study examined the 80,000 words of text extant within the available 55 nonprofit social media policies and found emergent themes that articulate the current ethical state of nonprofit social media policies. Hand-coding processes yielded themes of engagement, responsibility, privacy, protection, transparency, and respect. Computer-coding additionally aggregated these themes into larger themes of privacy, sharing, communication, accuracy, inaccuracy, engagement, and dialogue. Further analysis explored the ways in which nonprofit social media policies imply a dialectical model of ethical frameworks between legal and dialogic dimensions.     

Building relationships through dialogic communication: organizations,stakeholders, and computer-mediated communication

Online media are integral to daily life, and while many organizations use them to reach broad audiences, others still appear to be uncomfortable with online media because they do not understand how to maximize their potential to interact effectively with stakeholders. Numerous organizations use online media for one-way communication to disseminate information, despite the affordances of the media platforms for two-way, dialogic communication. This article draws on two dominant interpersonal theories of computer-mediated communication—social information processing theory and the hyperpersonal model—to propose dialogic strategies that organizations can use to improve their online communication with their stakeholders. We illustrate the application of these principles through three stages of relationship building: initiating/experimenting, intensifying, and integrating/bonding. The article integrates the applications within an overall dialogic communication strategy, and provides organizations and practitioners with a model with which they can engage stakeholders with dialogic methods via social media.     

Voicing Moral Concerns: Yes,But How? The Use of Socratic Dialogue Methodology

After a selective review of relevant literature about teaching business ethics, this paper builds on a summary of Fred Bird’s thoughts about the voicing of moral concerns provided in his book about moral muteness (Bird in The muted conscience, 1996). Socratic dialogue methodology (in the tradition of L. Nelson and G. Heckmann) is then presented and the use of this methodology is examined, for business ethics teaching in general, and for addressing our paper topic in particular. Three short form Socratic dialogues about the paper topic are summarized for illustration, together with preparation and debriefing suggestions for a Socratic dialogue unit as part of a business ethics course. In conclusion, Socratic dialogue design is related to the experiential learning approach, and characterized by a few basic traits, which imply both risks and opportunities for business ethics teaching.     

Relationship learning: A conduit for internationalization

Internationalization opportunities can emerge through inter-organizational sharing, yet research on why and how organizations learn through relationship interactions is underdeveloped. We explore how learning in supplier-customer relationships contributes to organizational offerings through the knowledge development process. We identify relationship learning as an organizational dynamic capability by thematic analysis of qualitative longitudinal data from large as well as small and medium-sized organizations. Our case study of organizations demonstrates that nurturing personal relationships and paying attention to customer communication is core in knowledge sharing. Customer input is valuable in solution offerings, strengthening mutual work, and growth in internationalization within an existing relationship or in new ones. The results endorse that the knowledge development processes and commitments transpire at both ends of the relationship. The findings provide practical managerial implications for ensuring the development of open and transparent communication conduits in relationships. The process of providing a solution that addresses customers' needs must begin with understanding their work, issues, and the intended jobs they will perform.     

Argumentation-Based Dialogues for Agent Co-Ordination

Many techniques for coordinating agents require that the agents communicate, and many of the requisite communications need more than the exchange of a few terse illocutions. In other words they require some form of dialogue. This paper discusses one way to create such dialogues, the use of argumentation, and illustrates the use of this approach in the definition of dialogues about joint plans.     

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change: Denial, Inaction and Repression

An extensive theoretical and research literature on organizational change and its implementation has been accumulating over the past fifty years. It is customary in this literature to find resistance to change mentioned as an inevitable consequence of organizational change initiatives. Yet there has been little discussion of the nature and forms of resistance that is institutionalized in organizational structure and processes. Furthermore, organization development perspectives on organizational change address management-initiated change, but not change proposed by advocates for the powerless and disadvantaged. Focussing on institutionalized resistance from the standpoint of the advocate of fundamental change, this discussion proposes a typology consisting of a sequence of forms of active resistance to change, from denial through inaction to repression. The typology is illustrated by referring to responses of organizational decision makers to the efforts of employment equity change agents to address issues of systemic discrimination in the work place. The purpose of the typology is to assist change advocates, such as equality seekers, to name, analyze and think strategically about the institutionalized resistance they encounter, and about effective responses to the resistance.     

Staff Attitudes to Talking Openly About Ethical Dilemmas: The Role of Business Ethics Conceptions and Trust

To ensure ethical employee behavior, companies often utilize several forms of mostly one-way communication such as codes of conduct. The extent to which these efforts, in addition to informing about the company stance on ethics, are able to positively influence behavior is disputed. In contrast, research on business ethics communication and behavior indicates a relatively clear, positive link between open workplace dialogue about ethical issues and ethical conduct. In this article, I therefore address the question: What influences employee attitudes to talking openly about ethical issues? Answers are proposed on the basis of focus group interviews with staff at the Denmark and Brazil affiliates of the global healthcare company Novo Nordisk. It was found that interest in discussing ethical issues was influenced by two main factors: employee conceptualizations of business ethics and the level of inter-collegial trust, credibility, and confidence. In this article, by examining these phenomena, I aim at providing insight that can both inform scholars in these fields as well as help managers in their attempts to promote open workplace dialogue about ethical issues.     

Relationship Value Management: Exploring the Integration of Employee,Customer and Shareholder Value and Enterprise Performance Models

Value as a theme in the relationship marketing literature is gaining increasing attention. In particular, the synthesis of value concepts with a multi-stakeholder approach to relationship marketing has been the subject of recent interest. Building on earlier work, this article explores how key elements of relationship value can be integrated through a focus on three key stakeholder groups: employees, customers and shareholders. The linkages between employee value, customer value and shareholder value, including the research on the service-profit chain, are explored. The paper also explores the extent to which linkage models or enterprise performance models, which integrate these components of value, have been adopted by organisations. Two case studies are used to illustrate the practical application by organisations seeking to develop enterprise performance models.     

Business models for people, planet (& profits): exploring the phenomena of social business, a market-based approach to social value creation

This article explores the hybrid phenomenon of social business, that is, both a form of organization and a practice that deliberately harnesses market dynamics to address deeply rooted social issues through the design and implementation of a core product or service. This new form of hybrid venture melds the social purpose traditionally associated with non-profit organizations with the economic purpose and market-based methods traditionally associated with for-profit firms. This exploratory research inductively explores the process by which social businesses are designed. The result suggests that clear intentionality around social purpose drives the design of these ventures and their associated missions and business models such that they can creatively synthesize competing paradigms (economic and social purpose) within one venture. The tight coupling of mission, method, and operationalization allows for the multi-stakeholder promise of the business model to be fulfilled.     

Sustainability reporting and corporate identity: action research evidence in an Italian retailing cooperative

Cooperatives are facing the challenge to be competitive in the market, without losing their traditional values of mutuality and democracy. To do that, they need to re‐construct open and participative dialogue with their employees and members based on more democratic forms of communication and engagement. From this point of view, the measurement and communication of sustainability aspects may allow a dialogue to be mobilized with shareholders and stakeholders without losing the attention on competitive factors. Based on these premises, the article analyses the experience of a 5‐year action research project (from 2006 to mid‐2011), carried out within Unicoop Tirreno, an Italian consumers' cooperative, and aimed to implement different tools for sustainability accounting and to embrace a more open dialogue with stakeholders, in particular with employees and members. In this process of change, the tools implemented for sustainability accounting played a key role in supporting the cooperative to reinterpret its own values and in stimulating a new and participative management approach. The results indicate a virtuous circle between the management and measurement of cooperative principles and the management and measurement of sustainability issues.