Corporations,Stakeholders and Sustainable Development I: A Theoretical Exploration of Business–Society Relations

Sustainable development (SD) – that is, “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations” – can be pursued in many different ways. Stakeholder relations management (SRM) is one such way, through which corporations are confronted with economic, social, and environmental stakeholder claims. This paper lays the groundwork for an empirical analysis of the question of how far SD can be achieved through SRM. It describes the so-called SD–SRM perspective as a distinctive research approach and shows how it relates to the wider body of stakeholder theory. Next, the concept of SD is operationalized for the microeconomic level with reference to important documents. Based on the ensuing SD framework, it is shown how SD and SRM relate to each other, and how the two concepts relate to other popular concepts such as Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The paper concludes that the significance of societal guiding models such as SD and of management approaches like CSR is strongly dependent on their footing in society. Reinhard Steurer is a senior researcher and lecturer at the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration. His research focuses on the changing roles of states, businesses and civil societies in the context of sustainable development. He is author and co-author of numerous articles, dealing with questions of how governments and businesses tackle the challenge of sustainable development, and what the two societal domains can learn from each other in doing so. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Salzburg/Austria, and a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Maryland/U.S.A. Markus E. Langer studied ecology and environmental economics at the University of Vienna and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration as well as industrial environmental management at Yale University. He is currently working as Managing Director of FORUM Umweltbildung. Previously he was working since 1999 as a senior researcher and lecturer at the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration. His research focused on the Evaluation of Sustainable Development as well as Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Management. Astrid Konrad studied business administration at the University of Graz. She has been working at the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration since 2002. Her research focus is on Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Management. André Martinuzzi studied business adminstration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. He is working as a project manager at the Department of Environmental Economics and Management since 1993, as a lecturer at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration and leads the Managing Sustainability Research Centre since 1999. Since 2001 he worked as a scientific coordinator of Austria’s Sustainability Strategy. In 2003 he worked as a scientific editor of the Corporate Social Responsibility vision statement of the Austrian Industry and as a process consultant for the Austrian Forest Program. Research areas: Eco-Consulting, Corporate Sustainability, Evaluating Sustainable Development, Sustainability Strategies and Stakeholder Dialogues.     

Ist die EU-Agrarpolitik ihr Geld wert?

Expenditure for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been in the centre of recent policy debate in the preparation of the Financial Framework for the period 2014–2020. Expenditure has generally been considered as the necessary costs for the achievement of the CAP objectives. The authors of this article argue that expenditure is not equal to the economic costs of a policy. Moreover, they claim that the main part of CAP expenditure is not well targeted for the achievement of the CAP’s objectives. The bulk of expenditure is for direct payments tied to agricultural land and, hence, contributes little if anything to CAP’s objectives as laid down in the treaties of the European Union or officially articulated elsewhere.     

Mind the channel! An affordance perspective on how digital voice channels encourage or discourage employee voice

We apply an affordance lens on qualitative data from three case organisations using a digital voice channel providing employees with the opportunity to speak up via answering periodic mini‐surveys and making comments in an anonymous mini‐forum. We find that imbrications of material and social agencies (i.e., the voice channel's features and managerial reactions to voice) in the respective organisational contexts culminate in employees perceiving the channel as either affording or constraining voice, leading to perceived voice outcomes that eventually encourage or discourage them to speak up. Whether voice is encouraged or discouraged partly results from the mere interaction between employees and the digital voice channel independent of managerial reactions. Our findings thus challenge the emphasis on managerial behaviour and reactions to voice in explaining voice behaviour and outcomes in extant literature.     

The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) application in the Flemish long-term decision making process on mobility and logistics

The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) is a methodology to evaluate different policy measures whereby different stakeholders’ opinions are explicitly taken into account. This paper describes the MAMCA methodology and how it has been used in the “Flanders in Action Process”. One of the objectives of this process is to turn Flanders into a top region in terms of mobility and logistics by attracting logistic activities with a large added value, realizing fluent and widely accessible mobility, a huge increase in traffic safety and a decrease of the environmental impact of transport. As there are a wide range of actors with different interests involved in this process, the MAMCA methodology was applied to evaluate a set of possible policy measures being proposed to reach this objective. An important advantage of this methodology is that it is able to support the decision maker in his final decision as the inclusion of different points of view leads to a general prioritisation of the proposed policy measures.     

A nonparametric efficiency analysis of German public transport companies

In this paper, we present a nonparametric comparative efficiency analysis of 179 communal public transport bus companies in Germany (1990–2004). We apply both deterministic data envelopment analysis (DEA) and bootstrapping to test the robustness of our estimates and to test the hypothesis of global and individual constant returns to scale. We find that the average technical efficiency of German bus companies is relatively low. We observe that the industry appears to be characterized by increasing returns to scale for smaller companies. These results would imply increasing pressure on bus companies to restructure.     

The distinct influence of power distance perception and power distance values on customer satisfaction in response to loyalty programs

In today's fiercely competitive environment, firms are increasingly relying on loyalty programs to influence customers' repeat purchase behavior. However, little is known about how customers' cultural values shape their satisfaction in response to loyalty programs. Such knowledge is important because it allows marketers to identify cultural segments that may be more or less likely to respond favorably to loyalty programs, and hence increase the effectiveness of such programs. In the current research, we propose that power distance perception — defined as the extent to which people observe power disparities in society — positively influences satisfaction of customers who hold loyalty status, but negatively influences satisfaction of customers who do not hold loyalty status with a firm. In contrast, power distance values — defined as the extent to which people endorse power disparities in society — negatively influences satisfaction of customers who hold loyalty status, but positively influences satisfaction of customers who do not hold loyalty status with a firm. A quasi-field study and several lab experiments support these propositions, shed light on the underlying mechanisms, and rule out alternative explanations. Our findings also uncover several distinct tools that marketers could use to influence non-loyalty status and loyalty status customers' satisfaction with businesses.     

Organizational characteristics explaining participation in sustainable business models in the sharing economy: Evidence from the fashion industry using conjoint analysis

Environmental and social challenges require new sustainable business models, like sharing platforms. However, sharing platforms differ widely in their contribution to a more sustainable society. Whereas idealistic sharing platforms have dominant social goals, other sharing platforms are, or became, commercial. We explore the attractiveness of the typical organizational characteristics of idealistic sharing platforms in the fashion industry context, an industry with negative environmental and social impacts. Based on a literature review and exploratory focus groups, we conduct an online survey using conjoint analysis, completed by 1,512 respondents. Our results reveal that potential users prefer clothes sharing platforms to be small, to not partner with large clothing retailers, to have the possibility to participate in decision‐making, but to not require shareholding.