Andrew C. Wicks

Does Stakeholder Orientation Matter? The Relationship Between Stakeholder Management Models and Firm Financial Performance

Little empirical work has been done on the effect of stakeholder management on corporate performance. In this study, we contributed to stakeholder theory development by (1) deriving two distinct stakeholder management models from extant research, (2) testing the descriptive accuracy of these models, and (3) including important variables from the strategy literature in the tested models. The results provide support for a strategic stakeholder management model but no support for an intrinsic stakeholder commitment model. Implications of these findings for management practice and future research are discussed.

A Feminist Reinterpretation of The Stakeholder Concept

Stakeholder theory has become one of the most important developments in the field of business ethics. While this concept has evolved and gained prominence as a method of integrating ethics into the basic purposes and strategic objectives of the firm, the authors argue that stakeholder theory has retained certain “masculinist†assumptions from the wider business literature that limit its usefulness. The resources of feminist thought, specifically the work of Carol Gilligan, provide a means of reinterpreting the stakeholder concept in a way that overcomes many of the existing limitations. This reading provides a different understanding of the identity and meaning of the firm, specifically in terms of its relationship to stakeholder groups and what it means for a firm to succeed. The alternatives proposed also converge with recent trends in the wider management literature and provide practical guidance for firms which face a myriad of challenges in the increasingly complex and global marketplace.

Getting Real: Stakeholder Theory, Managerial Practice, and the General Irrelevance of Fiduciary Duties Owed to Shareholders

Stakeholder theorists have generally misunderstood the nature and ramifications of the fiduciary responsibilities that corporate directors owe their stockholders. This fiduciary duty requires the exercise of care, loyalty, and honesty with regard to the financial interests of stockholders. Such obligations do not conflict with the normative goals of stakeholder theory, nor, after a century of case law that includes Dodge Bros. v. Ford, do fiduciary responsibilities owed shareholders prevent managerial policies that are generous or sensitive to other corporate stakeholders. The common law recognizes a multitude of legal relationships between various corporate constituents, and fiduciary duties are only a subset of the obligations that arise from these relationships. This article argues that statute and case law can bring comparable legal protection to constituents other than stockholders, and suggests ways that these protections might be further strengthened. Implications for management education are also discussed.

Values Enactment in Organizations: A Multi-Level Examination:

Business writers and practitioners recommend that core organizational values be integrated into employee work life for enhanced organizational productivity, yet no published studies have empirically examined the antecedents and outcomes of values enactment. Using longitudinal data on 2,622 employees, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results revealed that tenure and department-level values enactment were significant predictors of individual values enactment. Furthermore, employees who demonstrated high levels of values enactment were less likely to leave, and employees of high or low levels of values enactment in departments whose levels of values enactment matched their own were the most likely to be promoted.

Reflections on the Practical Relevance of Feminist Thought to Business

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on two recent papers (Burton and Dunn, “Feminist Ethics as Moral Grounding for Stakeholder Theory” and Dobson, “The Feminine Firm: A Comment”—both in the April 1996 edition of BEQ) which deal with the subject of feminism in business ethics. Both raise important issues for how we think about the relevance and potential contribution of feminist thought to this area of research.

Ethics and Incentives: An Evaluation and Development of Stakeholder Theory in the Health Care Industry

This paper utilizes a qualitative case study of the health care industry and a recent legal case to demonstrate that stakeholder theorys focus on ethics, without recognition of the effects of incentives, severely limits the theorys ability to provide managerial direction and explain managerial behavior. While ethics provide a basis for stakeholder prioritization, incentives influence whether managerial action is consistent with that prioritization. Our health care examples highlight this and other limitations of stakeholder theory and demonstrate the explanatory and directive power added by the inclusion of the interactive effects of ethics and incentives in stakeholder ordering.

The Value Dynamics of Total Quality Management: Ethics and the Foundations of TQM

Total Quality Management (TQM) has been the object of extensive discussion within the popular literature and is increasingly of interest among management scholars. Recent scholarship has focused on the theoretical foundations of TQM, particularly what makes it work, why so many firms have had problems implementing it, and under what circumstances it may create a sustainable advantage for individual firms. This paper extends the work in theory development regarding TQM and offers an empirically testable theoretical model of its function. The central claim of the paper is that embedded within TQM there are a set of moral values (“value dynamics†) that must be developed and maintained if it is to work, and that seeing them as moral values has significant theoretical and practical implications. That is, how TQM is understood and “enacted†(Weick 1979) by managers plays a significant role in determining its success. The discussion is linked to the ethics literature, normative implications of the model are explored, and directions for future research are outlined.

Cooperating with the Disempowered Using ESOPs to Forge a Stakeholder Relationship by Anchoring Employee Trust in Workplace Participation Programs

Although researchers have begun to examine how firms manage their entire web of stakeholder relationships, the component relationships also require theoretical and empirical examination. Several studies have found that Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) have a positive impact on firm performance. The authors explain these results by hypothesizing that ESOPs, when combined with employee participation programs, forge a stakeholder relationship between management and employees. The authors offer criteria for identifying stakeholder relationships, provide background on ESOPs, analyze why they contribute to establishing such a relationship, and examine how published empirical research supports this analysis. The authors conclude by suggesting directions for future research.

On Macintyre, Modernity and the Virtues: A Response to Dobson

After reading John Dobson’s thoughtful latest response to our ongoing discussion, I thought it important to clarify and reiterate a few key points.

An Evaluation of Journal Quality: The Perspective of Business Ethics Researchers

Alistract: The subject of journal qual1ty has received little attention in the business ethics literature. While there are reasons for this past neglect, there are important new considerations which make it vital that researchers now address this topic. First, virtually all business school defl partments use evaluations of journal quality as an important indicator of scholarly achievement, yet business ethics has no such studies. Second, as many schools are beginning to ask ethicists to publish in the wider management literature, it is important to find a way to compare joumal quality across these domains. In the absence of such studies, perform ance review committees (including tenure decisions) may well make incorrect inferences about journal quality within business ethics or assume that ethics joumals are not prestigious unless a candidate can provide evidence to the contrary (i.e. as in a study like this one). This study addresses these two issues. It relies on an opinion-based survey to establish journal quality by incorporating a list of journals within business ethics and the wider management literature. The target population is active business ethics researchers within the Society for Business Ethics (SBE). We present the results of the study and discuss their implications.