Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2 Relationships, Communication, Reporting and Performance

This book is the companion to "Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking: Theory, Responsibility and Engagement", which examined many emerging theoretical and normative issues and was released to acclaim in October 2002. "Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2" collects a series of essays by leading researchers worldwide to focus on the practice of stakeholder engagement in terms of relationship management, communication, reporting and performance. As stakeholder relationships and business in society have become increasingly central to the unfolding of stakeholder thinking, important new topics have begun to take centre stage in both the worlds of practice and academia. The first part of the book makes clear that simply engaging with stakeholders is insufficient to build successful stakeholder strategies. Companies, considered as the focal entity in a relationship, also need to actively communicate with stakeholders and manage their relationships. Dialogue is essential but can only be useful if companies listen to the messages that stakeholders are sending them. It is also essential to understand the role of power and influence in stakeholder engagement strategies especially if partnerships or collaborations emerge from the relationships that are engendered. The book examines a wide range of corporate–NGO collaborations to determine what makes them effective –and what makes them fail. Conflict management in stakeholder alliances is also discussed. The second part of the book addresses the critically important element of emerging schemes for the assessment, measurement and reporting of business in society and relationships involving stakeholders. A variety of current approaches to stakeholder assessment and reporting are discussed here including social auditing and sustainability reporting. The evolution of stakeholder thinking has led to a new view of the firm as an organism embedded in a complex web of relationships with other organisms. The role of management becomes immensely more challenging, when stakeholders are no longer seen as simply the objects of managerial action but rather as subjects with their own objectives and purposes. This book captures the complexity of managing relationships with stakeholders and will provide both practitioners and researchers with a wealth of information on the benefits and consequences of this practice.

Foreword Dr Andreas Pohlmann, Chief Administrative Officer, Celanese AG Introduction Sandra Sutherland Rahman, Framingham State College, USA, Sandra Waddock, Boston College, Carroll School of Management, USA, Jörg Andriof, Celanese AG, Germany; Warwick Business School, UK, and Bryan Husted, ITESM/Instituto De Empresa, Mexico Part I: Stakeholder communication and relationship management1. Stakeholder discourse and critical-frame analysis: the case of child labour in Bangladesh Sandra Sutherland Rahman, Framingham State College, USA 2. Are you talking to me? Stakeholder communication and the risks and rewards of dialogue Andrew Crane, University of Nottingham, UK, and Sharon Livesey, Fordham University, USA 3. Talking for change? Reflections on effective stakeholder dialogue Jem Bendell, Lifeworth.com 4. Stakeholder influences in developing a sustainability culture within the UK biotechnology sector Aharon Factor, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark 5. Power and social behaviour: a structuration approach to stakeholder networks Stephanie Welcomer, University of Maine, USA, Philip L. Cochran, Smeal College of Business, USA, and Virginia W. Gerde, University of New Mexico, USA 6. State of the union: NGO–business partnership stakeholders Jonathan Cohen, AccountAbility, UK 7. Stakeholders for environmental strategies: the case of the emerging industry in radioactive scrap metal treatment Bruce W. Clemens and Scott R. Gallagher, James Madison University, USA 8. Re-examining the concept of "stakeholder management" Michael E. Johnson-Cramer, Boston University School of Management, USA, Shawn L. Berman, Santa Clara University, USA, and James E. Post, Boston University School of Management, USA 9. Stakeholders and conflict management: corporate perspectives on collaborative approaches Julia Robbins, independent consultant, Canada 10. Managing corporate stakeholders: subjecting Miles's 1987 data-collection framework to tests of validation James Weber, Duquesne University, USA, and David M. Wasieleski, University of Pittsburgh, USA Part II: Stakeholder performance and reporting11. Approaches to stakeholder performance and reporting: an investor's perspective. Investigating how sustainable companies deliver value to shareholders Michael J. King, Innovys, UK 12. Top managers and institutional stakeholders: a test of two models of adaptation and performance Michael V. Russo, University of Oregon, USA, and Frank C. Schultz, Michigan State University, USA 13. A comparative study of stakeholder-oriented social audit models and reports Jane Zhang, University of Sunderland, UK, and Ian Fraser and Wan Ying Hill, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK

Jörg Andriof, Sandra Waddock, Sandra Sutherland Rahman