The aim of this study is to analyse how secondary stakeholders influence managerial decision-making on Corporate Social Responsibility disclosure. Based on stakeholder salience theory, we empirically investigate whether differences in environmental disclosure among companies are systematically related to differences in the level of power, urgency and legitimacy of the environmental non-governmental organisations with which these companies are confronted. Using proprietary archival data for an international sample of 199 large companies, our results suggest that differences in environmental disclosures between companies are (...) mainly associated with differences between their environmental stakeholders’ legitimacy. The effects of power and urgency are of an indirect nature, as they are mediated by legitimacy. This study improves our understanding of CSR disclosure by demonstrating that, next to the well-documented effect of company characteristics, stakeholder characteristics are also important. Besides, it provides scarce empirical evidence that not only primary stakeholders, but also secondary stakeholders are influential with regards to management decision-making. And more specifically, it offers insight into why some stakeholder groups are better able to influence disclosure decisions than other. The results also have important practical implications for managers of both environmental NGOs and large companies. For managers of environmental NGOs the results provide evidence of the most successful tactics for having their environmental information demands satisfied by companies. For company management the results provide insights into the most important stakeholder characteristics, on the basis of which they may develop strategies for proactively disclosing environmental information. (shrink)

Although stakeholder salience theory has received a great deal of scholarly attention in the business ethics and management literature, the theory has been criticized for overemphasizing rationality in managerial perceptions. We argue that it is important to better understand what socially constructed emotions signal in business relations, and we posit the role of envy as a discursive resource used to signal and construct the asymmetrical power relations between small business owner–managers and their stakeholders. Our study is based on a qualitative (...) study on discursive accounts elicited from 33 interviews with small business owner–managers in Finland. Our study makes two primary contributions. First, we suggest that socially and culturally constructed emotions have significance in stakeholder salience analyses. Second, we suggest that socially and culturally constructed emotions provide a fruitful context in which to understand the limitations of owner–managers’ personal and moral autonomy. (shrink)

The paper builds on the stakeholder salience framework and applies a social identity approach to explain family firm dynamics and how these could impact on family firm governance and ethics. In particular, we consider the family as the main stakeholder for family firms and we refer to the recent approaches to stakeholder theory based on ‘names-and-faces’ and on social identity to focus on family members at the individual and organizational level. Family businesses offer an opportunity to study stakeholder salience in (...) settings with multiple logics. Our paper acknowledges how the attributes of legitimacy, power and status, for family business members, can derive from three different institutional settings (family, business and local community) and how these attributes are assigned and gained by family members on the basis of the stakes they put (or could put) on the business. From the analysis of these dynamics specific ethical considerations emerge. (shrink)

The organizational justice literature and the family business literature have developed independently, which limits our understanding of fairness and justice in the family business workplace. So far, the concepts of justice and fairness have been used interchangeably in the family business literature, as if objective measures that aim to increase justice in the workplace will automatically translate into fairness perceptions among family business employees. By integrating the organizational justice literature and the family business literature, we first differentiate between the two (...) concepts of justice and fairness and argue that a utilitarian conceptualization of justice may come into direct conflict with fairness perceptions in the family business workplace. Second, we shed light on the importance of incorporating socioemotional goals, particularly those that reveal a bright side of socioemotional wealth, into rules and regulations designed to increase justice in the workplace, which, we argue, contributes to increasing fairness perceptions among employees and to building and maintaining an ethical family business workplace. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Research studying the effects of non-financial goals on stakeholder relationships remains inconclusive, with scholars disagreeing on which goals increase or decrease a firm’s proactive stakeholder engagement (PSE). Instead of examining which goals act as forces for good or evil, we shift the focus of recent discussions by emphasizing the mechanisms that can explain the positive and negative stakeholder outcomes of non-financial goals under the umbrella of one theoretical lens. We do so by introducing an ethics of care perspective. Specifically, we (...) first show that four of the five most distinctive non-financial goals of family owners jointly stipulate care-based morality, which likely enhances PSE. However, we subsequently argue that one goal, namely, the wish to exert power and influence, interacts with other goals and related care-based morality to lower PSE. Finally, we show how female family directors temper these interactions. Our insights into the additive and interactive effects of non-financial goals on PSE contribute to corporate social responsibility research, to the organizational goal literature, to family business studies and to work drawing on care ethics in management studies. (shrink)

This study examines to what extent different types of CEOs in family firms influence external and internal stakeholder-related CSP as compared to CEOs in nonfamily firms. Linking family CEO and nonfamily CEO with CSR outcomes, we provide evidence that family CEOs are positively associated with both external and internal CSR, whereas nonfamily CEOs within family firms tend to be negatively associated with both external and internal CSR. We show that the incumbent CEO’s age moderates the above relationships, indicating the existence (...) of shifting family priorities and suggesting a tendency toward CSR conformity as the salience of succession concerns increases. (shrink)

Managers in ethnic businesses are confronted with ethical dilemmas when taking action based on ethnic ties; and often as a result, they increase the already vulnerable positions of these businesses and their stakeholders. Many of these dilemmas concern the capital that is generated through variations in the use of ethnic stakeholder social ties. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a stakeholder-based model of social capital formation, mediated by various forms of ethnic ties, to explore the duality of ethnicity: (...) it can aid and hinder an ethnic business. Drawing upon the social capital/economic development, stakeholder salience, ethnic businesses literatures, and on social identity theory, we develop a cyclical model of relationships among ethnic business stakeholder attributes and social capital, as mediated by three-way Simmelian bonding and bridging ties, which then, in turn, affects the ethnic stakeholder attributes. We argue that the development of bridging yet strong ties through this cyclical process is relevant for the improvement of the positions of ethnic businesses in terms of both economic success and social responsibility. Specifically, we suggest that, given the duality of ethnicity in business, managers can prioritize stakeholder relationships based upon how these stakeholder ties affect social capital. (shrink)

How do individuals respond when they perceive that their family business has been built upon unethical business conduct? Drawing on an expanded version of Hirschman’s typology of generic responses to declining situations (Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970), which includes responses of Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect, we offer a model that predicts probability of intended response behavior as a function of normative obligation (i.e., what one perceives ought (...) to be done), managerial discretion (i.e., what one perceives can be done), and successor commitment to the firm. The model is tested on 124 business school students exposed to a scenario depicting an inherited ethical dilemma occurring in a family business from Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, and shows support for elements of the proposed framework. Most notable is a significant negative relationship between normative firm-directed commitment and the response of Neglect. (shrink)

This study questions the assumption that firms always prioritize economic stakeholders over social stakeholders. An examination of 468 Chinese private firms reveals three important conditions driving firms to prioritize social stakeholders over economic stakeholders. First, the percentage of family ownership increases the likelihood of social stakeholder priority up to a point, after which further increase in the percentage of family ownership decreases the likelihood of social stakeholder priority. Firms planning initial public offerings and smaller firms are more likely to prioritize (...) social stakeholders. The findings reveal important exceptions and nuances in stakeholder management strategies. (shrink)

This paper advances stakeholder salience theory from the viewpoint of small businesses. It is argued that the stakeholder salience process for small businesses is influenced by their local embeddedness, captured by the idea of social proximity, and characterised by multiple relationships that the owner-manager and stakeholders share beyond the business context. It is further stated that the ethics of care is a valuable ethical lens through which to understand social proximity in small businesses. The contribution of the study conceptualises how (...) the perceived social proximity between local stakeholders and small business owner-managers influences managerial considerations of the legitimacy, power and urgency of stakeholders and their claims. Specifically, the paradoxical nature of close relationships in the salience process is acknowledged and discussed. (shrink)

Academic research suggests that variances in contextual dynamics, and more specifically religion, may lead to disparate perceptions and practices of corporate social responsibility. Driven by the increased geopolitical and economic importance of the Middle East and identified gaps in knowledge, the study aims to examine if indeed there is a divergent form of CSR exercised in the region. The study identifies unique CSR dimensions and constructs presented through an empirical framework in order to outline the practice and perception of CSR (...) in a context with strong Islamic beliefs. The framework goes beyond the platform of mere Islamic philanthropy and is based on CSR-stakeholder management practices. Following an exploratory research design and collecting interview data from representatives of 63 organisations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, the study offers a snapshot of the CSR reality from the perspective of those living the phenomenon. The results suggest that the practice and perception of CSR in the examined context are largely grounded in the areas of social and altruistic actions but they cannot be examined in isolation from the religious context of CSR operation. This focus is mainly attributed to the dominant role of Islam in the examined sample, which leads to forms of non-structured or semi-structured approaches to CSR. Apart from the theoretical advancements offered to the CSR literature, the study also provides contributions for practitioners and policy makers. (shrink)

Using data collected through semi-structured open-ended interviews and archival material, we examined the transience of stakeholders’ salience in the organisational field going through institutional change process. We found strong support for the dominant institutional logic-stakeholder salience relationship. More importantly, the results of our study reveal that changes in stakeholders’ salience are directly related to changes in stakeholders’ attributes. Moreover, we uncover mutual associations among various types of salience attributes and show that the degree of mutual association of various types of (...) attributes depends upon the stage the organisation has reached during the process of institutional change. (shrink)

The goal of this research is to analyze the heterogeneity of family firms in the normative attention to their non-family stakeholders. With this aim, we suggest that the psychological process of top family managers in terms of individual affective commitment to their firms is a key variable to explain that heterogeneity. However, we also suggest a moderator effect of the family stakeholder salience in the relationship between the managers' affective commitment to the firm and the establishment of firm goals toward (...) non-family stakeholders. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis on data obtained from 207 family executives show a significant positive influence of managers' affective commitment on the establishment of goals related both to internal and external non-family stakeholders. In addition, we can observe a negative moderator effect of the family utilitarian power—as an indicator of the family stakeholder salience—on the relationship between the family managers' affective commitment and the goals related to non-family employees. (shrink)

Based on the literature on stakeholder management and family firm dynamics, this research analyses the relationship between three constructs: the identification of business families with their family firms, FFs’ orientation toward key non-family stakeholders, and the achievement of better economic performance. Data analyses from 374 family and non-family members of 173 Spanish FFs show that a high level of family identification with their firms affects the orientation of FFs toward key non-family stakeholders in setting corporate goals and that this orientation (...) will lead to higher economic performance only when it is built on family identification with the firm. Our results also show that the significance of both relationships changes with the degree of family involvement in the management of the FF. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between family control and young entrepreneurial firm’s bribing behavior around the globe. Relying on over 2,000 young firms from the World Bank Environment Survey, we find that family control helps to reduce a firm’s bribery behavior, but further investigation shows that this effect only exists in countries with weaker macro-governance environment. In countries with more established and transparent governance mechanism, family control does not seem to make any difference. We interpret our findings as the business (...) family’s preservation of socioemotional wealth. (shrink)

This study adds to the theory of family business management by exploring the effects of family ownership on the corporate misconduct of small firms in the United States. The empirical findings indicate that small family-owned firms are less likely to commit misconduct than small non-family-owned firms. We interpret this finding as family firms aiming to achieve the trans-generational succession of moral capital. Further investigation shows a nonlinear family-ownership–misconduct relationship. A negative relationship between them only appears in mature firms. We further (...) show that for relatively mature firms, only family firms with older owners are less likely to commit corporate misconduct. (shrink)

Family firms are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies, but how they differ in the disclosure of social and environmental actions from non-family firms has been largely overlooked in the literature. Advancing the discourse on corporate social responsibility reporting, we examine how family influence on a business organization affects CSR reporting. The arguments developed here draw on institutional theory, using a rich body of empirical evidence gathered through a content analysis of the CSR reports of 98 (...) large- and medium-sized Italian firms. The grounded theory analysis informs and contextualizes several differences in the type and content of corporate social responsibility reports of family and non-family firms. Our findings show that in comparison to non-family firms, family firms disseminate a greater variety of CSR reports, are less compliant with CSR standards and place emphasis on different CSR topics. We, thus, contribute to the family business and corporate social responsibility reporting literatures in several ways, offering implications for practice and outlining promising avenues for future research. (shrink)

To contribute to the continuing challenge of explaining how managers identify stakeholders and assess their salience, in this article, we chronicle the history, assess the impact, and evaluate the possibilities opened by Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (MAW-1997). We do so through two types of qualitative analysis, and also through utilizing a quantitative network analysis tool. The first qualitative analysis categorizes the major contributions of the most influential papers succeeding MAW-1997; the second identifies and compares the relevant issues with MAW-1997 at (...) the time of initial publication and today. We apply main path analysis, a quantitative tool, to map how this scholarly domain has evolved. These three analyses robustly depict the impact of MAW-1997 and the ensuing scholarly conversation, and they enable us to illustrate the current state and trajectory of stakeholder identification and salience scholarship. We close by discussing pressing topics related to the broader body of stakeholder theory literature. (shrink)

Responsible family ownership is a combination of the family’s commitment to the family-firm’s stakeholders in the long term and the explicit behaviour of the family members associated with the firm. However, families are not individuals but rather a system of relationships among family members. In such a context, misunderstandings in communication, anachronistic mentalities and different value systems can block the intergenerational transmission of RFO. Consequently, the responsibility of the family towards the FF’s stakeholders may be damaged and the firm’s socially (...) responsible behaviour hindered. This paper aims to identify how RFO is transferred across generations and to ascertain the role that family social capital plays in preserving the transmission of RFO from generation to generation. Our research is based on three in-depth case studies of Mexican family-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises. First, the paper identifies and contrasts a set of FSC-specific factors and problems which play a relevant role in the transmission of RFO while recognizing the influence of the mutually reinforcing dynamics of FSC dimensions. Secondly, the family’s honourableness :751–767, 2013) is identified as a key driver for sustaining the transmission of RFO. Finally, the paper identifies RFO institutionalization required to face the intrinsic problems of transmitting RFO in growing families. (shrink)