Legitimizing the Stakeholder Perspective at a Saudi Conglomerate

Abstract

We present a case of proactive change that occurred in a large organization in Saudi Arabia. We explain how the organizational leadership actively embarked on a project to institute a stakeholder perspective within its code of ethics. Because of the complexities of sources for organizational cognitions and behaviors, organizational members have loyalties that sometimes contradict with such a perspective. Affiliation to family and tribes puts an obstacle to a consideration to multiple stakeholders. The company had to go through a deep religious discourse in its corporate documents to create a rhetoric that is convincing to its employees and other constituencies. In doing so, and in a manner that is perhaps not found in other parts of the world, the company had to invoke the religious argument very clearly in its corporate lingo. The company was successful in adopting these concepts because they were able to use local vocabulary and sense making mechanisms that are unique to the environment that the company...