Edited by Jörg Andriof, Celanese AG, Germany, Sandra Waddock, Boston College, USA, Bryan Husted, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico and Sandra Sutherland Rahman, Framingham State College, USA

260pp
234 x 156 mm
Hardback
ISBN 1 874719 53 5
£40.00
April 2003

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.

Contents

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
Bryan Husted, ITESM/Instituto De Empresa, Mexico

Part 1
Stakeholder communication and relationship management

1. 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
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
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
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
David M. Wasieleski, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Part 2
Stakeholder performance and reporting

11. 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
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
Ian Fraser and Wan Ying Hill, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK