An Innovative Approach to Stakeholder Theory: application in spanish transnational corporations

Retolaza, Jose Luis; Ruiz-Roqueñi, Maite; San-Jose, Leire

doi:10.7819/rbgn.v17i55.2056

ABSTRACT

Objective:

This paper describes a different perspective on the application of stakeholder theory, concentrating only on the interests of stakeholders rather than on their roles. The purpose of this article is to provide an option for solving Jensen’s “problem of governance”; this approach will allow the agent to manage the stakeholders having ascertained that the needs of stakeholders overlap and, accordingly, the agent should be able to monitor multiple stakes as they are aligned.

Design/methodology/approach:

A Delphi method was used with the aim to achieve consensus about the interests of stakeholders for companies in Spain. The confirmatory phase was based on interviews to test whether the interests identified in the preliminary study match the interests that the IBEX-35 firms recognized in relation with their stakeholders.

Findings:

The main contributions are: the addition of a new interest-based perspective to the different classifications made by stakeholder theory; a solution to the diversity of indicators between stakeholders and shareholders; and, finally, a proposal for an integrated accounting system, incorporating economic as well as social issues employing a common metric (monetary).

Practical implications:

A new perspective focusing on stakeholder interests and the confirmation that interests may converge permits the control and management of multiple principals in transnational corporations operating in different countries.

Originality/value:

There is a gap in the applicability of stakeholder management that the interest-based perspective can help resolve; moreover the monetization of social value is an option to efficiently manage transnational corporations.

Keywords:
Stakeholder Approach; Social Value; Accounting; Strategy

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REFERENCES

Agle, B. R., Donaldson, T., Freeman, R. E., Jensen, M. C., Mitchell, R. K., & Wood, D. J. (2008). Dialogue: toward superior stakeholder theory. Business Ethics Quarterly, 18(2), 153-190.
Agle, B. R., Mitchell, R. K., & Sonnenfeld, J. A. (1999). Who matters to CEOs? An investigation of stakeholder attributes and salience, corporate performance, and CEO values. Academy of Management Journal, 42(5), 507-525.
Alcaraz, A. S., & Rodenas, S. P. (2013). Spanish banks in face Academy of Management Journalof the corporate social responsibility standards: previous analysis of the financial crisis. Revista Brasileira de Gestão de Negócios, 15(49), 562-581.
Arrow, K. J. (1984). The economics of information ( Vol. 4). Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Asher, C. C., Mahoney, J. M., & Mahoney, J. T. (2005). Towards a property rights foundation for a stakeholder theory of the firm. Journal of Management and Governance, 9(1), 5-32.
Berman, S. L., Wicks, A. C., Kotha, S., & Jones, T. M. (1999). Does stakeholder orientation matter? The relationship between stakeholder management models and firm financial performance. Academy of Management Journal , 42(5), 488-506.
Boatright, J. (2014). Ethics in finance (3rd ed.). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building your company’s vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65.
Cyphert, F. R., & Gant, W. L. (1971). The Delphi technique: a case study. Phi Delta Kappan, 52, 272-273.
Dalkey, N. C., & Helmer, O. (1963). An experimental application of the Delphi method to the use of experts. Management Science, 9(3), 458-467.
Egidi, M., & Marris, R. (1995). Economics, bounded rationality and the cognitive revolution Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
Freeman, R. E. (2010). Strategic management: a stakeholder approach Boston: Pitman.
Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., & Wicks, A. C. (2007). Managing for stakeholders: survival, reputation, and success New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Parmar, B. L., & De Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder theory: the state of the art New York: Cambridge University Press.
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Friedman, M. (1970, September). The social responsibility of business is to increase profit. New York Times Magazine, (122-126), 32-33, 1970.
Goodpaster, K. E. (1991). Business ethics and stakeholder analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly , 1(1), 53-73.
Grecco, M. C. P., Milani, M. A. F., Fº, Segura, L. C., Sanchez, I. M. G., & Dominguez, L. R. (2013). The voluntary disclosure of sustainable information: a comparative analysis of Spanish and Brazilian companies. Revista de Contabilidade e Organizações, 7(17), 45-55.
Guimarães, H. W. M. (1984). Responsabilidade social da empresa: uma visão histórica de sua problemática. Revista de Administração de Empresas, 24(4), 211-219.
Jensen, M. (2002). Value maximization, stakeholder theory, and the corporate objective function. Business Ethics Quarterly , 12(3), 235-256.
Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2006). Alignment: using the balanced scorecard to create corporate synergies Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Setiawan, I. (2010). Marketing 3.0: from products to customers to the human spirit Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Mitchell, L. E. (2007). The board as a path toward corporate social responsibility [GWU Legal Studies Research Paper nº 354]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=996683
» http://ssrn.com/abstract=996683
Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886.
Mitnick, B. M. (1980). The political economy of regulation: creating, designing, and removing regulatory forms New York: Columbia University Press.
Patrus, R., Carvalho, A. M., Neto, Coelho, H. M. Q., & Teodósio, A. S. S. (2013). Corporate social responsibility and labor relations: A research agenda about internal stakeholders management in UN’s Global Compact signatory corporations. Revista Brasileira de Gestão de Negócios , 15(46), 22-38.
Phillips, R. A. (2003). Stakeholder theory and organizational ethics San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard University.
Retolaza, J. L., San-Jose, L., & Ruiz-Roqueñi, M. (2014).Ontological stakeholder view: innovative perspective of explanation of the firm. Global Business Review, 15(1), 25-36.
Retolaza, J. L., San-Jose, L., & Ruiz-Roqueñi, M. (2015). Social accounting for sustainability monetizing the social value Heidelberg: Springer.
San-Jose, L., & Retolaza, J. L. (2014, June). A prospective view of emergent research lines in ethics in fnance, forthcoming. Proceedings of the IESE Symposium Ethics in Accounting, Finanece, and Banking, Barcelona, Spain, 18.
San-Jose, L., Retolaza, J. L., & Torres, J. (2014). Efficiency in Spanish banking: A multistakeholder approach analysis. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, 32(3), 240-255.
Simon, H. A. (1982). Models of bounded rationality: empirically grounded economic reason ( Vol. 3). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Stone, A. (1982). Regulation and its alternatives Washington, DC. Congressional Quarterly Press.
Visser, W. (2014). CSR 2.0 Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.
Wicks, A. C. (1996). Overcoming the separation thesis the need for a reconsideration of business and society research. Business & Society, 35(1), 89-118.
Wood, D. J., Logsdon, J. M., Lewellyn, P. G., & Davenport, K. (2006). Global business citizenship: a transformative framework for ethics and sustainable capitalism New York: ME Sharpe.

6
Evaluation process: Double Blind Review

1.
This figure is taken both from the in-depth interviews held with the IBEX-35 firms and from sustainability reports.
2.
The BBVA is a multinational financial services group with more than 48 million customers, over a million shareholders and 120,000 employees distributed throughout 8,000 offices in 35 countries. See www.bbva.es for more information.
3.
Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in terms of stock market capitalization, with a presence in 25 countries, a customer base of over 281 million people, backed up by 257,000 professionals and with more than 1.5 million direct shareholders. See www.telefonica.es for more information.
4.
Repsol is an integrated global energy company, which develops upstream (exploration and production of hydrocarbons) and downstream activities (transformation of hydrocarbons into products and energy solutions for the home), has a presence in more than 50 countries and over 24,000 workers on its staff. See www.repsol.com for more information.

Publication Dates

Publication in this collection
Apr 2015

History

Received
23 July 2014
Accepted
29 May 2015

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

[1] Agle, B. R., Donaldson, T., Freeman, R. E., Jensen, M. C., Mitchell, R. K., & Wood, D. J. (2008). Dialogue: toward superior stakeholder theory. Business Ethics Quarterly, 18(2), 153-190.

[2] Agle, B. R., Mitchell, R. K., & Sonnenfeld, J. A. (1999). Who matters to CEOs? An investigation of stakeholder attributes and salience, corporate performance, and CEO values. Academy of Management Journal, 42(5), 507-525.

[3] Alcaraz, A. S., & Rodenas, S. P. (2013). Spanish banks in face Academy of Management Journalof the corporate social responsibility standards: previous analysis of the financial crisis. Revista Brasileira de Gestão de Negócios, 15(49), 562-581.

[4] Arrow, K. J. (1984). The economics of information ( Vol. 4). Harvard: Harvard University Press.

[5] Asher, C. C., Mahoney, J. M., & Mahoney, J. T. (2005). Towards a property rights foundation for a stakeholder theory of the firm. Journal of Management and Governance, 9(1), 5-32.

[6] Berman, S. L., Wicks, A. C., Kotha, S., & Jones, T. M. (1999). Does stakeholder orientation matter? The relationship between stakeholder management models and firm financial performance. Academy of Management Journal , 42(5), 488-506.

[7] Boatright, J. (2014). Ethics in finance (3rd ed.). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

[8] Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building your company’s vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65.

[9] Cyphert, F. R., & Gant, W. L. (1971). The Delphi technique: a case study. Phi Delta Kappan, 52, 272-273.

[10] Dalkey, N. C., & Helmer, O. (1963). An experimental application of the Delphi method to the use of experts. Management Science, 9(3), 458-467.

[11] Egidi, M., & Marris, R. (1995). Economics, bounded rationality and the cognitive revolution Aldershot: Edward Elgar.

[12] Freeman, R. E. (2010). Strategic management: a stakeholder approach Boston: Pitman.

[13] Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., & Wicks, A. C. (2007). Managing for stakeholders: survival, reputation, and success New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

[14] Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Parmar, B. L., & De Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder theory: the state of the art New York: Cambridge University Press.

[15] Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[16] Friedman, M. (1970, September). The social responsibility of business is to increase profit. New York Times Magazine, (122-126), 32-33, 1970.

[17] Goodpaster, K. E. (1991). Business ethics and stakeholder analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly , 1(1), 53-73.

[18] Grecco, M. C. P., Milani, M. A. F., Fº, Segura, L. C., Sanchez, I. M. G., & Dominguez, L. R. (2013). The voluntary disclosure of sustainable information: a comparative analysis of Spanish and Brazilian companies. Revista de Contabilidade e Organizações, 7(17), 45-55.

[19] Guimarães, H. W. M. (1984). Responsabilidade social da empresa: uma visão histórica de sua problemática. Revista de Administração de Empresas, 24(4), 211-219.

[20] Jensen, M. (2002). Value maximization, stakeholder theory, and the corporate objective function. Business Ethics Quarterly , 12(3), 235-256.

[21] Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2006). Alignment: using the balanced scorecard to create corporate synergies Boston: Harvard Business Press.

[22] Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Setiawan, I. (2010). Marketing 3.0: from products to customers to the human spirit Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

[23] Mitchell, L. E. (2007). The board as a path toward corporate social responsibility [GWU Legal Studies Research Paper nº 354]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=996683
» http://ssrn.com/abstract=996683

[24] Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886.

[25] Mitnick, B. M. (1980). The political economy of regulation: creating, designing, and removing regulatory forms New York: Columbia University Press.

[26] Patrus, R., Carvalho, A. M., Neto, Coelho, H. M. Q., & Teodósio, A. S. S. (2013). Corporate social responsibility and labor relations: A research agenda about internal stakeholders management in UN’s Global Compact signatory corporations. Revista Brasileira de Gestão de Negócios , 15(46), 22-38.

[27] Phillips, R. A. (2003). Stakeholder theory and organizational ethics San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

[28] Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard University.

[29] Retolaza, J. L., San-Jose, L., & Ruiz-Roqueñi, M. (2014).Ontological stakeholder view: innovative perspective of explanation of the firm. Global Business Review, 15(1), 25-36.

[30] Retolaza, J. L., San-Jose, L., & Ruiz-Roqueñi, M. (2015). Social accounting for sustainability monetizing the social value Heidelberg: Springer.

[31] San-Jose, L., & Retolaza, J. L. (2014, June). A prospective view of emergent research lines in ethics in fnance, forthcoming. Proceedings of the IESE Symposium Ethics in Accounting, Finanece, and Banking, Barcelona, Spain, 18.

[32] San-Jose, L., Retolaza, J. L., & Torres, J. (2014). Efficiency in Spanish banking: A multistakeholder approach analysis. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, 32(3), 240-255.

[33] Simon, H. A. (1982). Models of bounded rationality: empirically grounded economic reason ( Vol. 3). Cambridge: MIT Press.

[34] Stone, A. (1982). Regulation and its alternatives Washington, DC. Congressional Quarterly Press.

[35] Visser, W. (2014). CSR 2.0 Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.

[36] Wicks, A. C. (1996). Overcoming the separation thesis the need for a reconsideration of business and society research. Business & Society, 35(1), 89-118.

[37] Wood, D. J., Logsdon, J. M., Lewellyn, P. G., & Davenport, K. (2006). Global business citizenship: a transformative framework for ethics and sustainable capitalism New York: ME Sharpe.

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