Ari Paloviita

Actor‐networking stakeholder theory for today's corporate communications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest a need to widen stakeholder theory to include non‐human influences to better describe the complex corporate environment. Drawing from actor‐network theory, non‐human entities may “translate” new, unexpected stakeholders to support their aims.Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a theoretical conceptual approach with three illustrative examples.Findings – The examples provided show that corporate crises result partly from previously unacknowledged non‐human spheres of influence and cause corporations serious losses. Corporations that take a proactive stance and monitor the weak signals of change are able to improve their standing and maintain legitimacy.Research limitations/implications – The framework created requires more testing with different examples across contexts and cultures. Future studies should examine the process of translation more deeply and examine who can potentially be translated into a stakeholder.Practical implications – Corpo...

Recognizing definitive stakeholders in corporate environmental management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present four examples of stakeholder relationships related to issues of corporate environmental management (CEM) and analyze them based on the model of Mitchell et al. (1997).Design/methodology/approach – Secondary data are used in the case studies.Findings – The four cases presented show that basically any stakeholder can become definitive over time in the complex network of stakeholders with mutual relationships. The definitive stakeholders in CEM are no longer merely the NGOs and policymakers but now include many diverse groups such as customers, locals and suppliers.Research limitations/implications – These case studies cannot be generalized, but they could contribute to more comprehensive studies on stakeholder strategies in the future by raising up new CEM issues.Practical implications – The paper indicates that stakeholder strategies need to be changed in corporations over time. Latent stakeholders can become expectant and definitive stakeholders gradually ...

Insights into food system exposure, coping capacity and adaptive capacity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider the concepts of exposure, coping capacity and adaptive capacity as a multiple structure of vulnerability in order to distinguish and interpret short-term coping responses and long-term strategic responses to food system vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach This paper applies an abductive approach for qualitative analysis of data, which were collected through 18 semi-structured interviews among Finnish food system actors. Findings The findings suggest that coping capacity and adaptive capacity are indeed two different concepts, which both need to be addressed in the examination of food system vulnerability. Public and private food system governance and related decision-making processes seem to focus on building short-term coping capacity rather than strategic adaptive capacity. In fact, conservative and protective policies can be counterproductive in terms of building genuine adaptive capacity in the food system, highlighting institutional and policy failures as limiting adaptive capacity and affecting future vulnerability. Originality/value This paper is the first to provide evidence on the multiple structure of food system vulnerability. It simultaneously considers the external aspect (vulnerability drivers) and internal factors, including short term coping capacity and more strategic adaptive capacity, as key determinants of vulnerability.