Heiko Spitzeck

Stakeholder Governance: How Stakeholders Influence Corporate Decision Making

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how stakeholders are voluntarily granted influence in corporate decision making. Design/methodology/approach – The stakeholder governance practices of 46 companies were explored in a multiple comparative case analysis, drawing on publicly available sources. Findings – The research finds that stakeholders are granted a voice regarding operational, managerial as well as strategic issues. The power granted to stakeholders varies from non-participation to co-decision making. The majority of engagements found are a combination of low power and low scope of participation, which are limited in their potential to align the views of those inside and outside the corporate boundaries. Research limitations/implications – The data used in this research relied on publicly available sources, such as company reports, articles and web sites. Practical implications – By seeing an array of different stakeholder governance mechanisms managers can reflect on their own approach to stakeholders and see how other companies use stakeholder engagement for scenario planning and innovation. Originality/value – The paper is the first to empirically analyse a broad range of companies regarding their voluntary stakeholder engagement mechanisms. This design allows the creation of a heuristic for stakeholder governance as well as for identifying clusters.

The development of governance structures for corporate responsibility

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore patterns of integrating corporate responsibility issues into corporate governance mechanisms and their development over time.Design/methodology/approach – Data from the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index is explored to reveal dominant governance patterns of corporate responsibility issues for the 51 organizations continuously participating in the index since its launch in 2002.Findings – This research reports three major findings: First, there is increasing CEO leadership for the corporate responsibility agenda of the firm. Second, governance structures developed over time are now increasingly making use of corporate responsibility committees. In 2002 about 15 percent of the firms were using a CR committee, the number had increased by 2008 to more than 60 percent. Third, firms with a CR committee in place outperform others in the Corporate Responsibility Index.Research limitations/implications – While this paper gives a good insight into which st...

Humanism in Business

What is the purpose of our economic system? What would a more life-serving economy look like? There are many books about business and society, yet very few of them question the primacy of GDP growth, profit maximization and individual utility maximization. Even developments with a humanistic touch like stakeholder participation, corporate social responsibility or corporate philanthropy serve the same goal: to foster long-term growth and profitability. Humanism in Business questions these assumptions and investigates the possibility of creating a human-centered, value-oriented society based on humanistic principles. An international team of academics and practitioners present philosophical, spiritual, economic, psychological and organizational arguments that show how humanism can be used to understand, and possibly transform, business at three different levels: the systems level, the organizational level and the individual level. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and policymakers concerned with business ethics and the relationship between business and society.

Humanistic ethics in the age of globality

Through ongoing globalization managers today are faced with an array of values and codes of conduct that claim to be of relevance to their daily practice. Cultures and moral expectations differ around the globe which has resulted in the management of corporate responsibility becoming increasingly complex. Is there, however, a humanistic consensus that can bridge cultural and ethnic divides and reconcile the diverse and contrary interests of stakeholders world-wide?nnThe authors of this book discuss this question by exploring the rich traditions of humanistic ethics. They operate from the assumption that a concentration on the nature and the well-being of the human person could provide the requisite focus for an inter-cultural debate around normative ideals that could help both clarify and improve the often tense relationship between business and society

Value-Driven and Stakeholder-Based Ranking--A Closer Look at Evaluating "Education for Sustainable Development".

Whereas most ranking schemes aim at the identification of the universally best performing universities, value‐driven rankings take a focused perspective: they aim at monitoring the progress of some kind of societal agenda based on social values and hence look for progress concerning specific educational contents. The emerging field of education for sustainable development provides a good case for studying evaluation criteria of a value‐based ranking. This paper proposes a framework for a stakeholder‐based university evaluation and maps the territory of rankings addressing sustainable development. Finally a complementing evaluation is proposed to address identified shortcomings.