Stakeholder Theory Perspective Research Articles

Research on approaches to improve Corporate Performance through CSR: From the perspective of Stakeholder Theory

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, pharmaceutical enterprises have become increasingly important and have played a crucial role in ensuring people's life, health, and safety. Meanwhile, people continuously pay attention to the social responsibility performed by pharmaceutical enterprises. On the one hand, corporate social responsibility can maintain the brand image and improve its popularity. On the other hand, it can form a supervision role for the enterprise itself. Based on the role of stakeholders, does corporate social responsibility have a positive impact on corporate performance? This issue becomes the focus of this paper. Using the case of Pfizer, this paper analyzes corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the level of shareholders, employees, consumers, government, and social groups. Also, this paper compares CSR with corporate performance from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022. This paper found that corporate performance indicators would move in a negative direction when Pfizer did not actively fulfill its social responsibilities, especially at the level of shareholders, consumers, and the government. Therefore, through the case study of Pfizer, it can be concluded that corporate social responsibility has an impact on corporate performance. If an enterprise actively performs its social responsibility, corporate performance would also be improved accordingly, and vice versa.

A short report of the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view

Orientation: Learnerships has been operationalised in South Africa as part of the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS). The success of a learnership programme is influenced by stakeholder involvement.Research purpose: This study set out to explore the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view.Motivation for the study: The stakeholder theory perspective posits the importance of stakeholders buy-in and involvement in learnership implementation.Research approach/design and method: Semi-structured interviews with three key stakeholders in a specific learnership programme were conducted in 2020. Data were analysed by means of thematic analysis using Atlas.ti 8.1.Main findings: Although the primary objective of learnerships is to develop vocational skills, the organisation and even larger community also reap benefits from hosting a learnership. These benefits include lower recruitment costs, capacity building with employees that understands the culture of the organisation, simplified onboarding, and community involvement.Practical/managerial implications: Skills development in the learnerships is largely facilitated by means of social and informal learning. Although formal training opportunities are an important part of learnership, it should be designed to include interaction and collaboration with employees in the organisation.Contribution/value added: Skills development as operationalised in the NSDS is part of the learner benefit of the learnership programme in South Africa. This article highlights how external stakeholders can reap greater benefits in terms of capacity building if the learners are engaged in meaningful organisational contribution.

Are Christian Arabs' business models different from those of Muslim Arabs?

PurposeThe study aims to test a measurement scale to examine social business networks (Wasta) surrounding Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.Design/methodology/approachA 31-item scale was used to capture Wasta, consisting of the following: Mojamala (emotional), Hamola (conative) and Somah (cognitive) tri-components. A total of 149 Christian Arab and 304 Muslim Arab respondents were sampled and multi-group structural equation modeling was used to confirm the concept and test several hypotheses.FindingsThe findings from the study reveal that in order for success to occur within the Arab context, a sequential process of first developing Mojamala is necessary, before Hamola can prevail. Christian Arabs are motivated to integrate with society and form relationships via generalized trust. Muslim Arabs meanwhile tend to retain their distinct culture, using social networks to forge particularized trust. Shariah principles may also play a significant role in explaining why satisfaction was not found to be a necessary condition for Arab Muslims in driving relationship performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests that the 370 million Arab population may not be totally cohesive and should be refrained from being grouped together. In-group identification is a major contributor in explaining why business models are different between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians. The findings further support that Muslim Arab business models are based on tribalism or sheikocracy, whilst Christian Arab business models are based on legalistic frameworks and integration.Practical implicationsThe study supports prior research associated with Muslim Arab business models based on tribalism or sheikocracy (Ali, 1995). The findings suggest that Arab Muslim business models focus on particularized trust as opposed to generalized trust that is common in Arab Christian business models and in most western countries. The study demonstrates that Mojamala (the emotional construct), Hamola (empathy) and Somah (particularized trust) are useful constructs for building Wasta and they serve a core element for Arab Muslim business models. Mojamala and Somah both directly affect satisfaction. Somah and satisfaction have a direct influence on performance.Originality/valueThe findings provide evidence to support institutional theory. Also from a stakeholder theory perspective, viewing companies, not only through an economic lens, but also building social institutions, can lead to a better understanding of business models drawing on diverse cultures and faiths. The study may therefore serve as a useful reference for academics and practitioners as they grapple to enhance satisfaction and leverage performance advantages within this context.

The International Accounting Standards Board’s 2018 Conceptual Framework on user perspective: An application of stakeholder theory

The Conceptual Framework (CF), published by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), serves as a guide for nations creating general-purpose financial reports (GPFRs) for organizations (Gore & Zimmerman, 2007). This study attempts to critically evaluate the decision of the IASB to limit the primary users of the GPFRs in the 2010 and 2018 CF to financiers only from a stakeholder theory perspective. This study used a qualitative meta-analysis method to incorporate earlier qualitative studies in the area to derive deeper meanings through an interpretive process. This study reaffirms the ongoing issue of why the IASB supports the financiers as the primary user group of GPFRs. We found that the managerial branch of stakeholder theory fully supports the decision of the IASB to limit the primary user of the GPFRs to financiers only as management considers the financiers as the most influential stakeholder group whose information needs must be fulfilled under all the circumstances. This study has added to the existing body of knowledge by bringing much-needed clarity to the preparers of GPFRs. However, from a broad user and other theoretical standpoint, we strongly advise future studies to critically analyze the implications of the IASB’s decision to reclassify financiers only as the primary users of GPFRs.

Green Practices as Antecedents of Tourists’ Perceived Value, Satisfaction and Loyalty: With Special Reference to Eco Hotels in Sri Lanka

Hotels, as a resource-intensive industry, have caused massive harm to the environment. Thus, there has been a tremendous effort in creating “eco-friendly” awareness and initiating green practices in the hotel industry. However, how tourists perceive such green initiatives and the relationship between such initiatives and tourists’ perception is not well established. By selecting “eco-friendly” awarded hotels in Sri Lanka and adopting the stakeholder theory perspective this study explores the said relationship using four variables: value perception of tourists, satisfaction, revisit intention, and readiness to spread positive word of mouth. Findings show a positive influencing role of green hotel practices on tourists’ perceptions. Furthermore, it shows that tourists look beyond tangible demonstrations of “eco-friendly hotels” towards a higher aesthetic value that judges the greenness of hotels. Environmental recycling programs represent the most highly ranked initiative. Furthermore, energy efficiency, water-saving measures, and informational efforts have been identified as critical factors in attracting tourists.

Research on the Innovation of the Training Mechanism of Hotel Management Professionals Based on Stakeholder Collaboration

In 2019, China put forward the “Double High Plan”, emphasizing that vocational education should “serve the needs of building a modern economic system and higher quality and full employment”. The improvement of the requirements for the transformation and development of the service economy and the objective needs for high-quality employment of students all require the government to further transform its social functions, enhance its sense of corporate social responsibility, and give play to the role of industry enterprises and other stakeholders. To re-examine the existing talent training model of higher vocational colleges from the perspective of stakeholder theory and incorporate the interest demands of stakeholders into the talent training model will help achieve mutual benefit and win-win results for stakeholders, and further promote the implicit development of higher vocational colleges. This paper studies the innovation of the training mechanism of hotel management professionals based on stakeholder collaboration.

Does consumer social responsibility augment corporate social responsibility: A reciprocal analysis of external stakeholder from stakeholder theory perspective

AbstractThis study attempts to reveal the reciprocal analysis between the corporates and external stakeholders to substantiate the nexus how socially responsible practices amplify the repute of organizations. This study fulfills the literature gap by investigating the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and external stakeholders (consumers) by equipping consumer social responsibility (CnSR) as an intervening variable from the stance of stakeholder theory. The results by engaging SEM model demonstrated the positive connection of CSR on consumers in terms of two streams, that is, satisfaction toward CSR‐oriented firms and retention toward CSR‐oriented firms. The extended testing uncovered the positive moderating impact of CnSR and education on consumers' satisfaction and retention. These findings yield two‐way insights to augment green and environment‐friendly reciprocal connections in shaping a better community. In addition, how CnSR can bridge the gap is another interesting outcome of the study whereby experts may consider such a gauge for future work to report more exciting findings from assorted perspectives worldwide.

Board Gender Diversity, Corporate Social Disclosures, and National Culture

The impact of board gender diversity on corporate social responsibility has attracted considerable attention in recent years. However, the study of the relationship between board gender diversity, corporate social disclosures, and national culture has been scarce. Therefore, in this study, we measured the corporate social disclosures data of multinational corporations (MNCs) from China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States using content analysis. Then, we investigated the relationship between board gender diversity and the corporate social disclosures of MNCs as well as the moderating effect of national culture on that relationship. The results show that (1) board gender diversity positively impacts the corporate social disclosures of MNCs and that (2) masculinity negatively moderates the relationship between board gender diversity and the corporate social disclosures of MNCs. The findings emphasize the importance of board gender diversity in the stakeholder management of the board of directors and how it could be affected by different national cultural environments from the stakeholder theory perspective. This study established a link between board gender diversity, corporate social disclosures, and national culture as well as promoted the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure measurement methods. Additionally, our results provide suggestions to policymakers and MNCs in how to effectively adopt board gender diversity to promote CSR in specific national cultural environments.

Evaluation of Sovereign Sukuk as a government financing instrument with stakeholder theory: a moving forward policy from Indonesia’s experience

PurposeThis study aims to examine the performance of government projects financed by the issuance of Indonesia Sovereign Sukuk (SBSN Project) from stakeholder theory perspective and propose policy recommendations to improve its effectiveness as a government financing instrument.Design/methodology/approachThe authors applied a qualitative interpretive approach in this study by conducting content analysis using stakeholder theory. Big data from official webinars about Indonesia Sovereign Sukuk issuance on the internet were used and coded by qualitative data analysis software.FindingsThe results reveal the stakeholders’ concerns regarding the project implementation. The cluster analysis confirms that technical ministries are the instrumental stakeholders who have the authority and tools to achieve SBSN Project success. The authors propose inclusive policy recommendations for each stakeholder, such as establishing an SBSN Project Master Plan, presuming disincentive to use project extension facility and setting up a comprehensive approach to assist working units in technical ministries in project preparation, development and service delivery. From the perspective of sustainability, the Government of Indonesia should focus more on education to the local community as end-users, value creation to integrate SBSN Projects with other financing schemes and regulation to ensure the effectiveness of a reward–punishment mechanism.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study may be useful to the Government of Indonesia, especially the Ministry of Finance, in determining and establishing moving forward policies that are relevant and contribute significantly to the sustainability of the Sovereign Sukuk programme.Originality/valueThis study is one of a few studies exploring Islamic public financing instruments, with its originality lying in the examination of the SBSN Project performance from an academic approach, specifically stakeholder theory. This study uses big data available from the public domain to formulate proposed actions to achieve a sustainable SBSN Project programme.

Assessing impact of consumer perceived CSR on consumer attitude and purchase behaviour in retail segment: a stakeholder theory perspective

PurposeThis study aims to examine the relationship between the perception of consumers about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consumers’ purchasing behaviour in the retail sector. Specifically, this study investigates the impact of perceived CSR on consumer attitude and behaviour and the influence of attitude on the relationship between perceived CSR and purchase behaviour.Design/methodology/approachIn this study for collection of the data, an online questionnaire was distributed among the Indian retail consumers. From the collected primary data set, 249 data points were found fit for analysis. Further, the direct, indirect and moderating effects were evaluated using the structural equation modelling technique.FindingsIt is identified that while perceived CSR has a significant influence on consumer purchase behaviour, consumer attitude is having an insignificant impact on the relationship between perceived CSR and purchase behaviour. The findings of this study also show that consumer demographics do not have any moderating impact on the relationship between perceived CSR and purchase behaviour.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study are useful to retail managers interested in enhancing CSR. The results of this study suggest that retailers should focus on strengthening consumers’ perceptions about retailers’ CSR initiatives and enhancing co-creation activities. As an extension to this research, further study can include more potential mediators like consumer effectiveness and timing of CSR initiatives.Originality/valueThis study applies stakeholder theory as well as extends the classic theory of planned behaviour model and proposes the establishment of links among consumers’ perceptions about CSR, consumer attitude and behaviour around the retail sector. In addition, this study considers not only overall consumer behaviour but also specific dimensions of consumer behaviour, namely, loyalty, intention and satisfaction.

Perception of Justice in the Strategic Management of Stakeholders.

Justice is pointed out as one of the main guiding factors of stakeholder management. The principles of justice are able to provide a greater basis for establishing criteria for prioritizing the claims of different stakeholders. This research puts the theme of justice as central in the studies that integrate the stakeholder theory. We seek to investigate the origins and evolution of the concept, in order to clarify how justice is seen from the perspective of stakeholder theory. Next, we propose the objective of analyzing how the stakeholders' perception of justice is influenced by the process of value distribution for the stakeholders and how this relationship influences their reciprocity behavior. This idea constitutes a matrix that aggregates different types of stakeholders characterized based on the perception of justice and distribution of value to them. We suggest propositions that suggest the causality of the relationships suggested in the matrix. We believe that the development of this research will contribute by providing evidence of the benefits and strategic consistency for organizations that prioritize making decisions based on stakeholder justice, exploring the concept of justice in order to advance important issues of stakeholder theory and providing basis that stimulate the support of just organizations.

Documenting Workforce Rents: Exploring the Veracity of the New Stakeholder Perspective in Strategy

The new stakeholder theory perspective in strategy suggests that stakeholders may capture significant shares of the firm’s economic profits in the form of rents, but this work is primarily theoretical. In this paper we examine the extent to which we should be empirically concerned with this possibility. We focus on workforce rents as a special case of the broader class of stakeholder rents, and leverage unique longitudinal employment and financial data from the population of all Belgian firms from 1996 through 2016 to develop a novel empirical proxy for workforce rents. We find that one standard deviation in our workforce rents proxy amounts to 66 percent of the mean accounting profits in our sample suggesting that there may be substantive variance in workforce rents across firms. Further, we find that workforces in some firms actually capture the majority of the economic value the firm creates and illustrate that the relationship between economic value creation and workforce rents may be nonlinear. Collectively, these findings lend empirical credence to the theoretical issues raised by the new stakeholder perspective in strategy and suggest a need to reconsider some classic empirical findings in strategy with a more robust accounting for stakeholder rents.

Re-examining the Relationship between Internationalization and MNEs’ Performance with CSR

This study explores the effect of internationalization and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm performance by drawing on the stakeholder and resource-based theory perspectives. We took organizational slack and long-term orientation as moderating variables. We conducted multivariate analysis on a sample of award-winning corporates of excellence on CSR held by the Commonwealth Magazine and Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) data bank with 364 observations between 2015 and 2019. Our empirical findings indicate the following: (1) the degree of internationalization influences firm performance through CSR; (2) organizational slack enhances the positive relationship between the degree of internationalization and CSR; and (3) long-term orientation will enhance the positive relationship between the degree of internationalization and CSR.

Why Not Use the Sea? A Shared Value Approach to Sustainable Value Creation When Using Carbon Dioxide as a Valuable Resource in Manufacturing

Interest on the creation of sustainable value has recently increased as a response to global issues caused by traditional business-as-usual logic. Indeed, corporations pursuing profits and competitive advantage at the expense of social and environmental resources has become a source of pressing concern and institutionalized unsustainability needs to be reversed. To create sustainable value, a paradigm shift is required in who benefits from value creation: beyond customers, suppliers, and business partners, value should be created for an expanded range of stakeholders including governmental and non-governmental entities, local communities, and future generations. This study refers to unique value creation derived from business modeling for sustainability and the stakeholder theory perspective as a theoretical lens for understanding how sustainable shared value is created in the context of carbon capture and utilization. Using an exploratory, in-depth single case study of a microalgae cultivation project, the study gathers empirical evidence to show how engaging stakeholders around a common purpose can serve as a path to open new business opportunities for sustainable shared value. This study challenges the Friedman's assertion of shareholder profits and shows evidence of the power of creating shared value if a company adopts a purpose beyond profits. Through empirical findings on how embedding a sustainable purpose at the core can lead to business opportunities that provide shared value for multiple stakeholders, it outlines how a company can obtain value propositions that cater to economic, environmental, and societal balance in the drive to move toward a more sustainable society. This study thus contributes to the growing body of empirical literature on creating shared value and business models for sustainability. The findings are also relevant for various industry practitioners, presenting insights on sustainable value creation and business modeling for an industry plagued by high emissions and stakeholder pressure to do good.

Do Corporate Customers Prefer Socially Responsible Suppliers? An Instrumental Stakeholder Theory Perspective

Do Corporate Customers Prefer Socially Responsible Suppliers? An Instrumental Stakeholder Theory Perspective

Why is China struggling with waste classification? A stakeholder theory perspective

China has been struggling with waste classification for decades, even after the mandatory implementation of relevant policy in 2017. However, the causes of the failing performance of waste classification in developing countries attract little scholarly attention. To fill this gap, this paper addresses why China has been struggling with waste classification for decades by establishing a stakeholder theory framework using the indicators of influence, involvement, and interest to uncover the reality of waste management as well as complex interests among stakeholders. The factors hindering the implementation of waste classification policy, which result in the failure of public collective action, are identified. These factors include the established vagueness on the priority order of waste management from high-level governments, the policy implementation gap from grassroots-level governments, the powerful forces opposing waste classification from incineration enterprises, and the weak strength of formal resource recyclers and non-governmental organizations. This study contributes to presenting a realistic and comprehensive scenario with muti-agents of China's waste management.

The COVID-19 pandemic and corporate social responsibility of Korean global firms: from the perspective of stakeholder theory

Background: The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused tremendous socio-economic problems. All societies worldwide were faced with an emergency situation, and many were puzzled by the implementation of various countermeasures to overcome this situation. Such events call for active engagement and support from the private sector. Noting the expected social role of the private sector, this study builds on stakeholder theory and investigates the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of Korean global firms facing the difficulties of this situation. Methods: This study collected and analyzed news reports about the CSR activities of three representative Korean global firms (Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Hyundai Motors). News reports posted from January 2019 and after January 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in Korea, were collected. From the reports, the main keywords illustrating their CSR activities were extracted, and the frequency of each company was analyzed. Results: Findings showed that their CSR activities during the COVID-19 pandemic were conducted in a prompt and systemic way. They maintained focus on their main CSR activities, which were closely aligned with their business and CSR visions; simultaneously, they rapidly identified the areas needing support from their daily business activities and responded to them immediately and discretionary. This highlights their genuine motives in their CSR activities and good citizenship, as well as their significant role as rescuers during countrywide disasters. Conclusions: Supporting stakeholder theory, this study shows the broadly defined CSR activities of Korean global firms focusing on their target stakeholders. The agile and systemic approach to the companies’ CSR activities can benefit both society and businesses, contributing to creating social values and sustained co-prosperity with society. Furthermore, this study suggests that a close collaborative relationship with the government can produce a synergistic effect on community building recovering from a nationwide disaster.

The COVID-19 pandemic and corporate social responsibility of Korean global firms: from the perspective of stakeholder theory

Background: The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused tremendous socio-economic problems. All societies worldwide were faced with an emergency situation, and many were puzzled by the implementation of various countermeasures to overcome this situation. Such events call for active engagement and support from the private sector. Noting the expected social role of the private sector, this study builds on stakeholder theory and investigates the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of Korean global firms facing the difficulties of this situation. Methods: This study collected and analyzed news reports about the CSR activities of three representative Korean global firms (Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Hyundai Motors). News reports posted from January 2019 and after January 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in Korea, were collected. From the reports, the main keywords illustrating their CSR activities were extracted, and the frequency of each company was analyzed. Results: Findings showed that their CSR activities during the COVID-19 pandemic were conducted in a prompt and systemic way. They maintained focus on their main CSR activities, which were closely aligned with their business and CSR visions; simultaneously, they rapidly identified the areas needing support from their daily business activities and responded to them immediately and discretionary. This highlights their genuine motives in their CSR activities and good citizenship, as well as their significant role as rescuers during countrywide disasters. Conclusions: Supporting stakeholder theory, this study shows the broadly defined CSR activities of Korean global firms focusing on their target stakeholders. The agile and systemic approach to the companies' CSR activities can benefit both society and businesses, contributing to creating social values and sustained co-prosperity with society. Furthermore, this study suggests that a close collaborative relationship with the government can produce a synergistic effect on community building recovering from a nationwide disaster.

Discovering and nurturing local key stakeholders’ talent in emerging economies: using fsQCA to test the external human resources approach

In the global talent management (TM) field, scholars are calling for distinct and extended human resource (HR) architecture and systems facilitating the management of local talent. To answer to these calls, we adopted a stakeholder theory perspective that responds to five main criticisms of talent management in emerging markets (EMs). Based on that, we identified five main characteristics (purpose-driven organisation; translation attitude; empowerment-based engagement; cross-country relationship network; external HR approach) that could facilitate effective discovery and nurturing of local talent. Our study aimed to investigate if and what configuration of characteristics exists to enable MNEs to develop an effective talent management strategy of key local stakeholders for broader economic, social and environmental value creation, supported by the strategic HR management literature. We performed a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 20 training projects addressed to local key stakeholders in various industries and emerging countries. We demonstrate that the successful path for effective TM in EMs includes all five characteristics and our novelty lies in the discovery that to achieve effective TM in EMs, MNEs must consider local key suppliers and contractors as part of the organisation, forging what we call an external HR approach.

The Impact of CEO Duality and Financial Performance on CSR Disclosure: Empirical Evidence from State-Owned Enterprises in China

This paper studies the effects of a firm’s financial performance (FP) and chief executive officer’s (CEO) duality on the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the context of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) among Chinese A-share-registered companies. The results depict a negative relationship between CEO duality and CSR disclosure. Our results demonstrate that better-performing firms disclose CSR information more frequently and of higher quality compared with firms with poor financial performance. This role of financial performance in the quality of CSR disclosure is generally valuable in public enterprises; however, it is relatively sluggish in state-owned enterprises the outcomes indicate that the dual leadership structure reduces assessments and renders CEOs less liable to their stakeholders. Therefore, this study offers valuable information and details for regulators to improve corporate governance and CSR from the perspective of stakeholder theory.