Engaging Stakeholders During Intergovernmental Conflict: How Political Attributions Shape Stakeholder Engagement

When conflicts regarding industrial operations erupt between countries, relationships between corporations and stakeholders may be affected. We combine insights from stakeholder theory and studies on government and corporate social responsibility to investigate how intergovernmental politics shapes...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Esper, Susana C. (Author) ; Cruz, Luciano Barin (Author) ; Gond, Jean-Pascal (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer 2024
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2024, Volume: 191, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-27
Further subjects:B Governments
B Corporate social responsibility
B Public Policy
B Causal attribution
B Intergovernmental politics
B Stakeholder engagement
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:When conflicts regarding industrial operations erupt between countries, relationships between corporations and stakeholders may be affected. We combine insights from stakeholder theory and studies on government and corporate social responsibility to investigate how intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement. Relying on attribution theory and a qualitative analysis of the Finnish Metsä-Botnia (hereafter Botnia) company during the intergovernmental conflict between Uruguay and Argentina, we explore the mediating role of political attributions - defined as the stakeholder network actors’ inferences regarding governmental motives - in the process by which intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement. We induce three types of political attributions: instrumentalizing, which points to the undeclared instrumental motives of governments; radicalizing, which refers to the beliefs that governments immoderately intensify confrontation; and acting in bad faith, which relates to the perceptions that governments act in inconsistent and/or morally inappropriate ways. Our results show how these attributions combine in specific configurations to explain how intergovernmental politics shapes stakeholder engagement throughout the conflict. Our study theorizes the role of governments as stakeholders in stakeholder engagement and expands organizational studies of attribution to the stakeholder and global levels.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05448-3