The importance of stakeholder engagement practices to drive the corporate social sustainability of firms : a multilevel and combined approach to the perception of stakeholders, organisation and outcomes of stakeholder m

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Final Draft of Master Thesis

The Importance of Stakeholder Engagement Practices to Drive the

Corporate Social Sustainability of Firms: A Multilevel and Combined

Approach to the Perception of Stakeholders, Organisation and

Outcomes of Stakeholder Management

MSc in Business Studies – Strategy Track

University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business School

Supervisor: dhr . dr. A.E. (Arno) Kourula

Author: Iselina Elekes

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Abstract

This study investigated three research questions, which emerged from the critical analysis of the literature: How do managers perceive stakeholders? How is stakeholder management organised? What are the perceived outcomes of stakeholder management?

Because this study aimed to investigate the complexity of stakeholder groups, dialogues, stakeholder-managers as well as stakeholder-firm relationships and lastly stakeholder management outcomes, it was necessary to conduct an in-depth analysis of these phenomena on both the organisational and individual levels within a particular organisation. The researcher deliberately chose to conduct the case study research in Vodafone Netherlands, a large telecommunications company. Vodafone Netherlands was chosen for this study based on four criteria: access, CSR reputation, IT company and a multinational enterprise. This study used three research instruments: 16 interviews, field diary and secondary documents. The application of various research methods allowed the validation of findings from different perspectives and the understanding of contradictions in the data gathered. Overall, this study contributed to the literature through (1) a multilevel approach to stakeholder perceptions and stakeholder management practices (2) linking perception of stakeholder, organisation and outcomes of stakeholder management together (3) furthering existing stakeholder models. Accordingly, two theoretical models were developed; the Feedback Loop Model demonstrating the first two contributions and the Stakeholder Matrix addressing the third contribution to literature.

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Chapter 1. Introduction

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become one of the main concerns of today’s firms. A recent study by United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) of its 8000 member firms revealed that the majority of firms strive to contribute to the UNCG principles of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption by integrating CSR activities into their business strategy, taking action and collaborating with key stakeholders. Hence, firms are increasingly looking at ways in which they can contribute to broad development issues through business practices. Due to the loss of public trust in firms, globalization, competitive pressures and advantage, firms increasingly feel urged to meaningfully adopt CSR initiatives part of their business strategy (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2008). However, the study of UNCG (2013) found that firms need to bridge the gap between explicitly showing their concern and taking action through executing, evaluating and sharing strategies and UNCG principles. Similarly, an Accenture and UNCG study discovered that CEOs and managers are particularly looking for ways they can create value for their firm through CSR initiatives (Lacy and Hayward, 2014). Accordingly, firms ought to acknowledge how they can create value arising from stakeholder management (UNGC, 2013; Agle et al., 2008; Freeman, 2011). As a direct result, firms have to understand the complex nature of stakeholder relationships. Moreover, global firms have to actively engage and understand their wider stakeholder context at all times (Werhane, 2008).

Firstly, this study will provide a new understanding of relationships with stakeholders and thus the mapping of stakeholders by addressing the limitations of current models and approaches, namely their lack of ability to call for action and prioritisation (Werhane, 2008; Fassin, 2009). Scholars have expressed the need for CSR studies, which adopt a multilevel approach to stakeholder relations and thus this study aims to gain a holistic view of

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stakeholders and their relationships with organisations (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). Secondly, this study will demonstrate the various approaches to stakeholder dialogues and engagement applied by firms in a new light in order to identify some possible managerial challenges, which have not been addressed by the literature (Goodpaster, 1991; Mitchell et al., 1997; Mainardes, 2011; Habisch et al., 2011; Neville et al., 2011). Thirdly, this study will explore the perceived outcomes of stakeholder management somewhat peripheral in the literature, yet hugely critical to understand the role of stakeholder management in organisations and thus its significance for organisations. This study furthers the literature through (1) a multilevel approach to stakeholder perceptions and stakeholder management practices (2) linking perception of stakeholder, organisation and outcomes of stakeholder management together (3) furthering existing stakeholder models. Accordingly, two theoretical models are developed; the Feedback Loop Model, which demonstrates the first two contributions, and the Stakeholder Matrix, which presents a new actionable stakeholder map.

1.1 Plan of Exposition

Chapter 2 provides an extensive review of the current literature to date on CSR, stakeholder theory and stakeholder management in order to identify the research gaps and thus research questions for this study.

Chapter 3 gives a discussion of the methodological approaches and decisions through the justification of the most relevant methods to the research questions of this study.

Chapter 4 presents and analyses key results emerging from the primary data collection to the research questions of this study.

Chapter 5 discusses the literature and the key findings to the research questions; and concludes by summarizing the overall findings to each research question as well as explicitly demonstrates the contribution of this study to the existing literature and demonstrates possible future research avenues and managerial implications.

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Chapter 2. Literature Review

2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a research field is highly cluttered because research derives from various disciplines. So far scholars have analysed the literature based on different theoretical frameworks across diverse levels (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). As a result, CSR is a field of study due to the lack of dominant theories, assumptions and methods. To date, no consensus has been reached on a universal definition of CSR. However, the evolution of defining CSR is remarkable. CSR significantly evolved from Bowen’s (1953) understanding of “social responsibilities of businessmen”. Today, scholars see social responsibilities as an ‘attitude’ in approaching the decision making process of managers. Moreover, the CSR literature emphasised the volunteer nature of CSR (Caroll, 1999, p. 270). Despite the difficulty in defining CSR due to its multidisciplinary character, this study will adopt the most recently approved definition by various scholars (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012, p. 933); Accordingly, CSR initiatives are “context-specific organisational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance”. Furthermore, Aguinis & Glavas (2012) emphasised that actors across institutional, organisational and individual levels affect and apply policies and actions respectively.

Garriga and Melé (2004) identified four theory groups to describe CSR: instrumental, political, integrative and ethical. Whilst, instrumental theories stressed long term profit maximization through satisfying social objectives (Friedman, 1970) – where strategies are established according to the resource and dynamic capabilities view of the firm (Hart, 1995, Teece et al., 1997) – ethical theories focused on ethically correct contributions to the well

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integrative theories were complementary to ethical theories in terms of the integration of social demands into corporate decision-making. Lastly, political theories regarded corporations to be citizens of a community due to their social and business power which defines firms degree of social responsibility (Davis, 1967; Donaldson and Dunfee, 1994). However, Garriga and Melé, (2004) argued that the further research and assessment of these theories and their contributions is necessary to overcome their limitations. Also, scholars argued that the most researched area are environment issues, as opposed to stakeholder topics (Egri and Ralston, 2008; Lockett et al., 2006). The broad scope of this study within CSR will be to adopt both ethical and integrative theories – namely stakeholder theory and stakeholder – engagement partially due to the apparent significance of further research of these approaches within CSR.

2.2 Perception of stakeholders 2.2.1 Stakeholder theory

Stakeholder theory originated from the Swedish scholar Eric Rhenman (1964). He was first to acknowledge the impact of external and internal stakeholders or “interessent” whom firms have responsibility to. The original firm centric stakeholder map by Eric Rhenman acknowledged the wider stakeholder context of firms. American scholar R. Edward Freeman two decades later adapted this stakeholder map to his work (Strand and Freeman, 2013). With his seminal work, Freeman (1984) largely popularised stakeholder theory and many scholars have taken his work as a basis of understanding stakeholder theory. Swedish scholar, Eric Rhenman acknowledged the notion of ‘jointness of interest’ as a key concept to stakeholders (Strand and Freeman, 2013). Later, Freeman (2011) also emphasised that the central insight of stakeholder theory is ‘jointness of stakeholder interests’, where the role of businesses to create value to stakeholders and the firm through stakeholder relationships. Scholars (Agle et al., 2008; Parmar et al., 2010; Freeman, 2004; Freeman, 2011) further argued that firms have

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to see the mutual interest of stakeholders and consider how they can create value on the basis of their obligations. Despite that stakeholder theory has largely moved beyond the debate whether firms have responsibility to society or to maximize shareholder profits (Agle et al., 2008), Friedman’s (1970) view still remains to be a striking contrast to the CSR literature as a whole. Friedman (1970) argued his stance against corporate social responsibility by stating that firms’ key objective is to maximize profits, rather than to ensure the prosperity of their stakeholders.

The seminal work of Donaldson and Preston (1995) identified three categories of stakeholder theory – normative, instrumental or descriptive – which were originally argued to be mutually exhaustive. The scholars emphasised that the core of stakeholder theory is normative, thus moral because it identifies the obligations of organisations towards their stakeholders and thus firms have to see the mutual interests of stakeholders and consider how they can create value on the basis of their obligations (Freeman, 1984; Agle et al., 2008). Other scholars argued that solely acknowledging ones’ obligations does not lead to ethical behaviour and a meaningful relationship with stakeholders. The influential study of Clarkson (1995) also found support to the instrumental approach to stakeholder theory, where certain actions of firms towards stakeholders were emphasised and the outcomes discussed, particularly in terms of financial performance. In fact, the study of Berman et al. (1999) found support to the instrumental dimension of stakeholder theory, but no support to the normative aspect of stakeholder theory. While, Berman et al. (1999) did not found support for stakeholder relationships which directed managers strategic decision making processes, the study found stakeholder relationships to be a moderator in the strategic decision making of managers. In contrast, the study of Jawahar and Mclaughlin (2001) demonstrated descriptive stakeholder theory through the different action scenarios of managing stakeholders based on the specific life cycle of the firm, one of the few studies showing stakeholders actions

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through a dynamic approach. Finally, Jones and Wicks (1999) supported the normative fundament to stakeholder theory, yet called for a fused stakeholder theory of all three categories for both moral and practical soundness.

2.2.2 Nature of managers-stakeholder and organisation-stakeholder relationships

Stakeholder theory evolved from neoclassical economic paradigms of understanding firms in a vacuum to acknowledging that firms are embedded in a social context. Accordingly, managers ought to embrace ethical and moral principles part of their practices (Smith, 1776; Clarkson, 1995; Steurer et al., 2005). Stakeholder relationships have been increasingly acknowledged as a “multifaceted, multi-objective, complex phenomenon” (Steurer et al., 2005, p. 265).

Scott and Lane (2000, p, 44) defined organisational identity “ as the set of beliefs shared between top managers and stakeholders about the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics of an organisation.” Therefore, the ways which firms view their relationships with stakeholders may reflect a certain organisational identity and thus their approach to stakeholder concerns (Henrique and Sadorsky, 1999, p. 87; Scott and Lane, 2000). Henrique and Sadorsky (1999) identified and tested four different managerial attitudes towards stakeholders – reactive, defensive, accommodative, and proactive – which were argued to define the degree of companies’ sense of responsibility toward the community they operate in. In addition, the literature acknowledged the relationship of the firm and stakeholders based on a pressure-response view through a stakeholder and firm action-response research focus. Accordingly, if firms depended on stakeholder resources then stakeholders would use direct strategies to pressurise firms. However, if firms had an independent resource base, then stakeholders would prefer indirect modes of exerting their demands on firms e.g. alliancing (Frooman, 1999; Laplume et al., 2008). Moreover, stakeholders seemed to become active against firms when actors in a stakeholder group had diverging interests (Laplume et al.,

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2008). The literature suggested that firms could apply different tactics to challenge their stakeholders’ demands (Freeman, 1984; Laplume et al., 2008; Roloff, 2008; Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). Accordingly, in the stakeholder-organisation relationship, managers themselves may have an active role as a boundary spanner within and outside of organisational boundaries (Aldrich and Herker, 1977; Heugens et al., 2002).

2.2.3 Definition of Stakeholders

The difficulty of understanding the complex nature of stakeholder relations may be attributed to that the definition of stakeholders is “essentially contested” (Miles, 2011, p. 286). All in all, three different categories of stakeholder definitions existed in the literature, namely (1) those that view the stakeholder as the one who can legally demand certain actions from the organisation, (2) those that have some sort of power over the organisation, and (3) general definition which argued that anyone can be a stakeholder who the organisation impacts or is impacted by (Fassin, 2009; Miles, 2011). A universal definition of stakeholders was still missing due to different stakeholder interpretations across different contexts, firms or industries (Miles, 2011). Over four hundred definitions of stakeholders emerged, yet the broad definition of Freeman (1984) was the most cited of these: “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives” (Miles, 2011, p. 292). This vague definition reflected the ubiquity of stakeholders in the context of organisations. Accordingly, managers faced challenges in identifying and building relationships with a web of stakeholders. Furthermore, the lack of a more specific definitions regarding the boundaries of stakeholder groups potential difficulties for scholars to identify stakeholders and build theories in this field (Mainardes et al., 2011).

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2.2.4 Stakeholder models

When reviewing the literature, various stakeholder models showed the relationship between firms and stakeholders (Rhenman, 1964; Freeman, 1984; Werhane, 2008; Fassin, 2009; Freeman, 2010; Calton et al., 2013).

Firstly, the original firm centric model originated from Eric Rhenman (1964) but Freeman (1984) popularised it and scholars used it widely to show that firms are influenced by various stakeholder groups and vice versa (Strand and Freeman, 2013). The firm centric model demonstrated “the cognitive power of visual representation” (Fassin, 2009, p. 114). However, the firm centric view was only a one sided view to stakeholder relationships because it showed a prioritisation of firm value above the value of stakeholders (Werhane, 2008). Secondly, firm de-centric models showed firms as being embedded in a wider network where stakeholders and firms interact in a dynamic and systematic manner. Thirdly, moral imagination through ‘names and faces’ models were not only a useful approach to emphasise that stakeholders are at the center of the firm but also that stakeholders are humans and not just an entity (Werhane, 2008). Therefore, ‘names and faces’ stressed that managers’ decisions have an impact on human lives and thus moral considerations are critical when embracing stakeholder relationships (Werhane, 2008). Fourthly, compared to stakeholder models discussed above, network models provided a much more holistic view of the web of stakeholder and firm relationships without a particular focus on either the firm or any particular stakeholder. However, since stakeholder and firm relationships seemed interdependent, viewing the system of stakeholder relations in separate uniform units may give an unrealistic account of the interests, value and other attributes of this phenomena within the system (Werhane, 2008; Mainardes, 2011). What is more, Fassin (2009, p. 124) proposed a stakeholder model in a “solar system” approach to visualize stakeholders. While this revised interpretation of stakeholders was valuable with regards to understanding

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stakeholder groups and defining organisational boundaries, it was still very much a management or firms centric view, closely related to the original stakeholders model of Rehnman and Freeman and thus it had similar limitations. Finally, in his recent seminal work, Freeman (2010) proposed the ‘Stakeholder Grid’ as an alternative to existing stakeholder mapping models. The proposed grid by Freeman (2010) was a significant advancement of previous stakeholder mappings in terms of that this revised stakeholder map allowed a more specific identification and grouping of stakeholders to a particular company. At the same time, Freeman (2010) failed to overcome the most pressing shortcoming of stakeholder models, namely their lack of action orientation. Freeman (2010) himself acknowledged that future stakeholder models ought to reflect not only managers’ view of stakeholder, but also organisational processes.

In terms of stakeholder groups, the above various versions of stakeholder models seemed to share that competitors are not stakeholders, but customers, investors, suppliers and employees are stakeholders and they have an interest in the business, i.e. these are stakeholders in the traditional perspective (Fassin, 2009). Furthermore, stakeholder groups operating outside of the boundaries of the organisation are: ministries, government, pressure groups, regulators and the media, comprising of communities which enforce outside supervision, restriction and power on organisations (Fassin, 2009, p. 120). Fassin (2009) divided these into two groups; stakewatchers and stakekeepers, in order to emphasise that while the role of some stakeholders (e.g. pressure groups) are to supervise and advocate the interest of other stakeholders, other stakeholders (e.g. regulator) actually control and define the interest and conditions between the stakeholder and the organisation (Fassin, 2009). All in all, based on the review of the various stakeholder models in the literature, it seemed that all stakeholder models in general are considerably limited in terms of their ability to call for action.

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2.3 Organisation of stakeholder management

2.3.1 Identification and prioritisation of stakeholders

The CSR literature emphasised the importance of stakeholder considerations and involvement through the field’s concern of the relationship between business and society (Pedersen, 2006). While managers ought to translate stakeholder dialogues into business practices, managers are not capable of managing dialogues with all of their stakeholders due to the complexity and interconnectedness of stakeholders and their interests (Werhane, 2008). At the same time, identifying and prioritising stakeholders relevant to an organisation is critical with regards to understanding and addressing conflicting demands, which firms may face at one time due to the potential commercial and reputational damage that the misidentification of stakeholders may cause to organisations (Idowu and Filho, 2009). Many scholars have developed different classifications of stakeholders in an attempt to help identify and prioritise stakeholders. (Clarkson, 1995; Mitchell et al., 1997). The classification of stakeholders from Mitchell et al. (1997) was the most widely acknowledged in the literature due to its dynamism reflecting stakeholder and firm relationships as well as its ability to indicate the possible influence of stakeholders (Idowu and Filho, 2009; Werhane, 2008). Accordingly, managers ought to select their most important stakeholders in the specific time and situation, whom they decide to engage with, based on three stakeholder characteristics: power, legitimacy and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997, p. 872). As a result, three stakeholder categories are established: latent, expectant and definitive (Mitchell et al., 1997, p. 874). Accordinlgy, whilst firms ought to prioritise definitive stakeholders above other stakeholders – since they possess all three attributes – firms have to be aware of the ever-changing stakeholder contexts and thus the changing importance of stakeholders (Mitchell et al., 1997; Werhane, 2008). As a result, firms can identify which stakeholder to engage with and how to respond to stakeholder claims. Nevertheless, Idowu and Filho (2009) emphasised that

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managers ought to have a true understanding of stakeholder relationships in order to effectively categorise and engage with them, creating an intuitive managerial decision on the importance of stakeholders (Neville et al., 2010). The model proposed by Mitchell et al. (1997) is one of the few stakeholder theories in the literature, which was empirically tested in the literature (Agle et al., 2011; Mainardes, 2011). However, as a result of their empirical test, Agle et al. (1999) found that the criteria for the identification and prioritisation of stakeholders may lack in practical applicability (Mainardes, 2011). Interestingly, Neville et al. (2011) argued that while urgency is a useful criteria for signifying the changing nature of stakeholder salience, urgency is not an applicable criteria for identifying and defining stakeholders. Therefore, urgency is only considered to moderate the power and legitimacy of the stakeholder (Neville et al., 2011). Accordingly, one could argue that when taking identification and prioritisation separately, urgency may only be relevant for prioritising stakeholders but not identifying them.

2.3.2 Stakeholder dialogue

According to Goodpaster’s (1991) PASCAL process model, identifying and prioritising stakeholders does not mean that stakeholders are involved in the decision making and key actions of a firm. Thus, Goodpaster (1991) argued that identifying and prioritising stakeholders is only the initial phase in the strategic evaluation of stakeholders (Fassin, 2009). Hence, managers have to go beyond this step (perception and analysis), namely to combine stakeholder and organisational interests (synthesis and choice) as well as to take relevant actions and thus learn from stakeholder inclusion or exclusion of decision making processes. Similarly, Pedersen (2006, p. 143) summarised firms’ stakeholder processes – selection, interpretation and response – which enable organisations to simplify and manage the complexity of their stakeholder environment.

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Burchell and Cook (2008, p. 38) broadly defined dialogues as “ any conversation or communication” between firms and their stakeholders. Accordingly, dialogues reflect an organisational approach to overcome communicational barriers as well as to improve a broader understanding of inter-organisational relationships. Greenwood (2007, p. 315) added that “stakeholder engagement is understood as practices the organisation undertakes to involve stakeholders in a positive manner in organisational activities”. This notion highlighted the effort of companies to build mutual responsibility with their stakeholders as well as to become committed to problem solving (Bruchell and Cook, 2008). Kaptein and Van Tulder (2003) completed this view with that dialogues help organisations to share information with stakeholders and to understand their expectations.

Kaptein and Van Tulder, (2003, p. 216-220) as well as Van Huijstee and Glasbergen (2008) together identified four general forms to stakeholder dialogues; broad dialogue, stakeholder panel, selective-reactive and defensive dialogue. Whilst broad dialogues are informative in nature, stakeholder panels are to gather all stakeholders relevant to a problem faced by the organisation. Through the initiation of selective-reactive stakeholder dialogues, organisations aim to address certain topics with their stakeholders, which the organisation finds important to address or know more about. Finally, organisations initiated defensive dialogues when they perceived immediate threat from the stakeholder and so the problem had to be addressed immediately. One could argue that, these different approaches to stakeholder dialogues also demonstrate the degree of urgency of the problem and relevance to the organisation. Van Huijstee and Glasbergen, (2008) added to the study of Kaptein and Van Tulder, (2003) that stakeholder dialogues can also occur within working groups or through one-to-one conversations. Morsing and Schulz (2006) argued for a perfectly symmetric two-way dialogue approach where both the manager and the stakeholder influence each other. Similarly to the ‘broad dialogue’ approach of Van Huijstee and Glasbergen (2008), managers

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engaged in “sense giving and making” (i.e. managers provide and interpret information) in order to fully involve stakeholders in CSR communications. Whilst, through a symmetric two way dialogue, managers can be up to date regarding the changing expectations of stakeholders, it is doubtful whether the proposition of Morsing and Schulz (2006) could be viable in practice and truly sufficient to achieve sustainable behaviour. Furthermore, Van Huijstee and Glasbergen, (2008) and Kaptein and Van Tulder, (2003) demonstrated that stakeholder were engaged through various alternative dialogue approaches, not only through information giving but also through problem solving, and crisis management. Greenwood (2007, p. 318) emphasised “ stakeholder engagement is not the exclusive domain of socially responsible firms, nor is it the exclusive domain of socially responsibility activities within firms”. Accordingly, if an organisation has frequent dialogues with their stakeholders that does not mean that the organisation is socially responsible or simply that it will implement stakeholder concerns in its operations (Greenwood, 2007). Habisch et al.. (2011, p. 399) identified four approaches to stakeholder dialogues based on number, level and diversity of stakeholder dialogues in their sample of firms, namely: focused, engaging, and strategic. The degree of involvement of the stakeholder is demonstrated to be decreasing from a focused to a strategic approach to stakeholder dialogues. German firms were found to have a focused approach, and Italian firms an engaging approach. Interestingly, US firms were found to have strategic, and thus low involvement approach, which implied many stakeholder dialogue initiatives but these concentrated on a narrow set of forms, few topics and narrow group of stakeholders (Habisch et al., 2011). All in all, scholars emphasised that stakeholder dialogues result in sustainable behaviour, only if firms engage in various forms of dialogues and comprise various stakeholders (Kaptein and Van Tulder, 2003; Greenwood, 2007; Van Huijstee and Glasbergen, 2008; and Habisch et al., 2011).

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Pedersen (2006, p. 153) identified internal factors influencing stakeholder dialogue practices such as commitment, conciousness, capacity and consensus. O’Riordan and Fairbass (2008) relevantly completed these internal factors, with external factors such as stakeholder, event and context. Both scholars emphasised that it is critical that managers actually to commit to actions/practices based on stakeholder dialogues rather than only engaging in ‘explicit CSR’ (Habisch et al., 2011). Accordingly, CSR approaches ought to be integrated in the overall strategy of the firm rather than in a separate CSR programme for organisations to achieve the credibility and trust of the civil society that organisations actually integrate their ethical standards and stakeholder concerns in the firm’s governance and decision making processes (Galbreath, 2009; Idowu and Filho. 2009). Hence, stakeholder dialogue practices should not only be strategic, but also sustainable in order to integrate and transform applied practices in a continuous manner (Van Huijstee and Glasbergen, 2008; Idowu and Filho, 2009). Hence, the question arises whether managers face difficulties in engaging with their stakeholders. If so, what are those challenges that hinder managers to achieve high involvement with their stakeholders (Habisch et al., 2011; Mainardes et al., 2011).

2.4 Outcomes of stakeholder management

As a result of engagement with stakeholders, organisations can establish standards for their business practices and revise their sustainable strategies. On the one hand, scholars discussed subjective outcomes of stakeholder dialogues such as learning, trust and the ability to manage complex stakeholder relations and co-create ethical commitments (Burchell and Cook, 2008; Morsing and Schulz, 2006; Habisch et al., 2011). Van Huijstee and Glasbergen (2008) completed these outcomes as improvement of organisational policies and the establishment of partnerships with stakeholders as an outcome of stakeholder management and dialogues. On the other hand, a large part of the literature appeared to focus on the financial outcomes of stakeholder management and thus many studies focused on the relationship between

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stakeholder management and firms’ performance (Clarkson, 1995; Berman et al., 1999; Laplume et al., 2008). However, compared to studies regarding the perception of stakeholders and the organisation of stakeholder management discussed in previous sections, studies particularly regarding the subjective outcomes of stakeholder management were considerably less, despite their central role to create values for both the organisation and stakeholders.

Table 1 – Summary of literature on perception of stakeholders; organisation and outcomes of

stakeholder management

Perception Organisation Outcomes

Organis ational level

Definition of stakeholders – Freeman (1984); Miles et al. (2011). Stakeholder models - Rhenman, (1964); Freeman, (1984); Werhane, (2008); Fassin, (2009); Freeman, (2010); Calton et al., (2013) Organisational identity - Scott and Lane (2000). Stakeholder relationships – Fasssin (2009); Steurer et al.. (2005); Idowu and Filho (2009). Identification and Prioritisation of stakeholders - Clarkson, (1995); Mitchell et al. (1997); Neville et al. (2011). Processes – Pedersen (2006) Stakeholder Dialogues – Kaptein and Van Tulder (2003); Morsing and Schulz (2006); Greenwood (2007); Habisch et al. (2011). Financial outcomes – Clarkson (1995); Berman et al. (1999); Laplume et al. (2008). Ability to manage complex stakeholder relations, co-create ethical commitments, partnerships –Morsing and Schulz (2006); Habisch et al. (2011); Van Huijstee and Glasbergen (2008).

Individ ual level

Multi –

level Managerial attitudes towards stakeholders which define the company’s response profile to stakeholders – Henrique and Sadorsky (1999)

Processes – Goodpaster (1991).

Stakeholder Dialogues - Van Huijstee and Glasbergen (2008).

Learning, trust - Burchell and Cook (2008)

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2.5 Research gap

Multinational and global corporations in particular are embedded in a ‘complex adaptive system’, which suggests a constantly changing environment where the values, interests, powers and thus stakeholder relationships are quickly changing (Werhane, 2008, p. 467). As a result, global firms have to actively engage and understand their wider stakeholder context all the time (Werhane, 2008). Hence, this study will focus on how can a particular firm embrace this chaos.

Firstly, stakeholder models in the literature apply an organisational level to understanding stakeholder and firm relations. Therefore, this study aims to provide a new understanding to relationships with stakeholders by addressing the limitations of current models and approaches, namely their lack of ability to call for action and prioritisation. A multilevel view on stakeholder relationships is also relevant to the current approaches needed in the CSR field due to the overwhelming focus of studies on only one level of analysis, particularly on the organisational level (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012; refer to Table 1). The apparent complexity of stakeholder-firm and stakeholder-manager relationships requires further research on a multi level and an individual level. Firms and managers increasingly need to understand the complexity of stakeholder systems in order to engage in dialogues effectively and meaningfully and thus to become sustainable firms. Secondly, it is important to explore the extent and the ways, which managers organise stakeholder dialogues and the engagement with stakeholders in order to explore the individual level and thus possible managerial challenges in this respect, largely ignored by the literature (Mainardes, 2011). Thirdly, it is critical to investigate which outcomes are perceived of stakeholder management because various outcomes signify the importance of stakeholder engagement and may help to further clarify and understand stakeholder conceptualisations.

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Finally, the literature discussed separately; the perception of stakeholders, the organisation of stakeholder management and the outcomes of stakeholder management (refer to Table 1). By posing the following three research questions, this study aims to fill the research gaps identified above and thus to explore how these seemingly intertwining understandings of stakeholders and their management relate to each other:

1. How do managers perceive stakeholders? 2. How is stakeholder management organised?

3. What are the perceived outcomes of stakeholder management?

2.6 Chapter Summary

The second chapter of this study reviewed the CSR literature, stakeholder theory and stakeholder management. As a result, relevant research areas were identified to further the literature and thus three research questions were posed. The following chapter will consider research methods and evaluate the most relevant research methods for the research questions posed as a result of the critical review of the literature.

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Chapter 3. Methodology

3.1 Overview

After reviewing the literature it emerged that it is important to undertake primary research in order to address the research gaps identified. This chapter will address and evaluate the ways which primary and secondary research will be undertaken as well as the methods and it will provide a detailed account of data analysis approaches.

3.2 Research aims and objectives

Based on the literature, three research objectives were identified. Firstly, this study aims to provide a new understanding to relationships with stakeholders based on managerial perceptions and organisational process of managing stakeholder. Hence, this study aims to provide a new mapping of stakeholders by overcoming the lack of stakeholder maps’ ability to call for action and prioritisation (Rhenman, 1964; Freeman, 1984; Werhane, 2008; Fassin, 2009; Freeman, 2010; Calton et al., 2013). Secondly, this study aims to demonstrate the various approaches to stakeholder dialogues and engagement applied by firms in a new light in order to identify some possible managerial challenges, which have not been addressed by the literature (Goodpaster, 1991; Mitchell et al., 1997; Mainardes, 2011; Habisch et al., 2011; Neville et al., 2011). Thirdly, this study aims to explore the perceived outcomes of stakeholder management found somewhat peripheral in the literature, yet hugely critical to understand the role of stakeholder management in organisations and thus its significance for organisations.

Accordingly the research objectives of this study are as follows: 1. To understand the ways which managers perceive stakeholders 2. To explore the ways which firms organise stakeholder management. 3. To investigate the perceived outcomes of stakeholder management.

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All in all, through exploring the above research areas, this study aims to demonstrate the intertwining relationships of the above three pillars of stakeholder theory and understanding, which was analysed separately in the literature. Finally, this study will explore a multilevel approach to stakeholder relations and thus this study aims to gain a holistic view of stakeholders and their relationships with organisations (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012).

3.3 Qualitative research

Based on the above research aims and objective, this study intends to investigate the complexity of stakeholder groups, manager-stakeholder and organisation-stakeholder relationships, dialogues and outcomes, which requires an in-depth analysis of these phenomena on both the organisational and individual levels (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Yin, 2009; Thomas, 2011; Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). A recent review of the CSR field (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012) emphasised the need for qualitative studies because scholars tend to adopt quantitative rather than qualitative methods. Therefore, there is a lack of in-depth understanding of underlying individual actions and interactions in CSR and stakeholder management.

3.3.1 Case studies

Case studies are a suitable approach for studies where contextual details can aid the understanding of a phenomenon (Gephart, 2004; Yin, 2009). Aguinis and Glavas (2012, p. 933) stressed that CSR is concerned with “context-specific organisational actions and policies”. Accordingly, interactions between the firm, its employees and the stakeholders occur in different circumstances and contexts. Hence, stakeholder relations are unique to firms and so it would not be possible to meaningfully investigate stakeholder dialogues and stakeholder management processes without a given context. In order to be able to meet the research objectives of this study, a real world context ought to be investigated in order to illustrate stakeholder engagement in practice and to refine existing theories (Eisenhardt and

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Graebner, 2007). Accordingly, this study adopted a combination of a descriptive and an explorative design (Thomas, 2011). While this study aims to further the current understanding of stakeholder management, it will illustrate theoretical concepts through a specific organisation.

While it was widely acknowledged that multiple case studies are more effective for theory building, single case studies have a greater illustrative power of a phenomenon (Yin, 2009). As established earlier, this study aims to theoretically contribute with a multi-level approach to stakeholder perceptions and management processes. However, the in-depth understanding of stakeholder and firm interactions in a particular context appear to be crucial for theory building particularly in the CSR field. Furthermore, considering the time constrains imposed on this study, it would not be a viable research approach to conduct multiple case studies. As a result, the research selected one organisation and applied a retrospective as well as a snapshot approach to case study building (Thomas, 2011). Accordingly, the researcher not only collected data of past stakeholder engagement practices, but also data in a particular time frame in order to identify current stakeholder dialogue processes of the selected organisation (Thomas, 2011).

3.3.2 Unit of Analysis: The selection of Vodafone Netherlands

In total, four companies in different industries were approached through telephone calls or detailed emails explaining the topic, research aims and research objectives of this study. The researcher deliberately chose to investigate a large telecommunications company in the Netherlands, based on four criteria: access, CSR reputation, IT company and a multinational enterprise. While, it may be interesting to understand stakeholder processes from a multi national firm’s perspective, the telecommunications industry is highly complex and characterised by regulations as well as diverse stakeholder activity. The topic of this study is currently a very important issue for the selected organisation as a whole. The topic of this

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study seemed not to have similarly high relevance to the operations of the other organisations approached.

The selected company changed its approach to stakeholders about two years ago; however there are still issues remaining with stakeholder engagement. Whilst this study aims to explore the practical issues remaining, it can also contribute to the literature with regard to the specific research areas identified. The overview of this programme may support the further understanding of stakeholder perceptions, stakeholder management processes and outcomes. Due to the chosen firm’s large size and thus social and environmental impact, the organisation and its managers appeared to have many interactions with various stakeholders. The researcher of this study considers this organisation unique due to its current stakeholder programme and context, which may give an insight into stakeholder management practices that other organisations would not be able to offer (Siggelkow, 2007; Thomas, 2011). Consequently, the selected firm appeared to be both theoretically and contextually relevant (Gephart, 2004).

The position of the researcher in the field can be characterised by her relationship with the researched company (Pratt, 2009). Hence, it is important to note that the researcher of this study was an intern at the researched company. She was employed by the organisation for the time of the entire research process. Therefore, the company gave permission to the researcher to access data necessary to investigate the research questions of this study. Having access to relevant and rich data is critical for case study research because the researcher can gain an in-depth understanding of stakeholder issues and processes through the perspective of the selected organisation’s stakeholders and managers (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Yin, 2009).

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3.4 Data collection

Case studies are commonly based on different data sources (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Yin, 2009). The application of various research methods allowed the validation of findings from different perspectives and the understanding of contradictions in the data gathered (Bryman, 2008;Yin, 2009; Gibbert and Ruigrok, 2010). This study used three research instruments: interviews, observations and secondary data. The application of various research methods allowed the validation of findings from different perspectives and the understanding of contradictions in the data gathered (Bryman, 2008; Yin, 2009; Gibbert and Ruigrok, 2010).

The researcher of this study conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with managers at Vodafone Netherlands. On the one hand, interviews were conducted with managers who are involved in the current stakeholder programme and are highly knowledgeable about the various stakeholder engagement processes and strategies. This approach reflects the deductive nature of this qualitative study. On the other hand, the somewhat inductive nature of the study demanded a theoretical sampling method, where the analysis occurred during data collection in terms of generating concepts and relationships between the emerging concepts along the data collection process (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Furthermore, snowball sampling allowed the researcher of this study to interview respondents with unique experiences across management levels and also possible outliers contributing to the construct validity of this study, which would have been difficult to find without referrals (Gibbert and Ruigrok, 2010). Interviews were also conducted across the hierarchical levels of the organisations including middle management, senior management and the CEO. This approach provided the researcher with a thorough insight of the present stakeholder engagement practices and managers’ perceptions of stakeholder engagement. Each interview was recorded and straight after the interview the researcher took notes regarding her observations of the interview process. During the interview, the researcher referred to her

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interview protocol where she created various semi- structured questions relevant to the research questions of this study (Leech, 2002; Appendix 1). A semi structured interview approach allowed the comparison of answers provided by interviewees, and the gathering of rich data through a somewhat flexible approach to interviewing (Turner, 2010). Due to the limited availability of managers, interviews lasted 45 to 90 minutes. The majority of the interviews were conducted in March and April, 2014 (Appendix 2). After finishing the collection of interview data, participants were approached with follow up questions to ensure the most favorable data for this study (Turner, 2010).

Observation methods allowed the researcher to contextually enrich her understanding of stakeholder management practices through observing the social interactions and the settings of how stakeholder dialogues take place (Gephart, 2004). Detailed notes were taken to have detailed records of the researcher’s impressions and experiences during her internship. This data was helpful to understand the contextual details of managers’ perspective and the organisational culture. Furthermore, the researcher took part in stakeholder conferences and other stakeholder events, which further enabled her to take full benefits of observational data. The gathered observational data were compared and contrasted with the data gathered from interviews, reports and other observational data to validate the various types of data gathered (Bryman, 2008).

Outside of the secondary data collected for the literature review, the researcher collected internal documents; publicly available reports of Vodafone as well as websites part of the widespread secondary database for this study. Annual and Sustainability Reports were collected of the organisation ranging from 2009 to 2013. Documents were also collected from the researched organisation regarding specific stakeholder presentations and research studies conducted (Winn, 2001; Gibbert and Ruigrok, 2010; refer to Appendix 3). The secondary data collected helped the researcher to further understand the stakeholder processes and

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issues at hand yet from an organisational perspective. The above approaches were in full accordance with the aims of this study to investigate both the organisational and individual level of stakeholder relations, stakeholder management practices and outcomes.

3.5 Data analysis

The researcher stopped collecting data after she felt that she had sufficient diverse data to complete the analysis of this study, reaching data saturation (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). All interviews were recorded and transcribed. Eventually, the transcribed interview data added up to 194 pages of text. Additionally, field research diaries were also used as an input to the analysis, adding up to 15 pages of text. Furthermore, publicly available secondary data such as annual and sustainability reports from 2009 to 2014 as well as internally available presentations and documents were used in the analysis. Finally, interviewees were asked to draw or list stakeholders based on how they see them, in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of managers understanding of stakeholders during data analysis (refer to Appendix 4).

In order to reduce the subjectivity and bias of the researcher, inherent qualitative data analysis, NVivo was applied to the coding of the data (refer to Appendix 5). Before the coding process, the researcher made use of the word frequency query and also the word tree function in Nvivo in order to further lower her bias. This approach was very helpful in terms of realising other themes, which the researcher did not consider before running and analysing queries. For the coding process, the researcher used a deductive as well as an inductive approach in order to categorise the data collected (Pratt, 2009). ‘Perception’, ‘Organise’, and ‘Outcomes’ were the three first order nodes used from the start of the analysis, which derived from the literature review and the interview protocol. However, the further provisional nodes within each first order node were created inductively from the themes that emerged primarily from the interviews. First, all quotes were categorised in the three first order codes and as

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patterns emerged within the first order nodes, gradually provisional codes were created. At the end, 28 nodes were created in total to critically and comprehensively analyse the data. During coding, two different memos were created, one for the analytical and the other for the coding method process in order to be able to keep track of the coding process and also to begin with analysing the collected data.

After rearranging the quotes in the different first order and provisional nodes and thus finalising all the nodes, the researcher followed best practice when creating evidence tables to create a summary of all the nodes and the sample quotes (refer to Appendix 6). Thereafter, power quotes and example quotes were taken separately in order to assign the quotes, which illustrated some key points in the findings (Pratt, 2009). Accordingly, the researcher applied a backward approach to starting analysing her data as she organised the data and put it in tables and only then she started writing up the analysis of the data (Miles and Huberman, 1984).

During the analysis of the data, the researcher tried to maintain her critical view as much as possible through verification techniques. The researcher strived for representativeness through considering all evidence, and so comparing and contrasting data as well as searching for explanations of outliers (Miles and Huberman, 1984; Yin, 2009). Comparing gathered evidence with conflicting existing literature was as important as comparing it with similar literature in order to achieve internal validity and generalisability (Eisenhardt, 1989). Furthermore, the researcher created memos and presentations to gain the feedback of interviewees and to confirm the validity of the analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1984).

3.6 Limitations

It would be foolhardy to maintain that any piece of research is completely infallible; hence it is necessary to critique this work:

Ø Despite best efforts taken to consider a long-term perspective on the selected case, only a two year perspective according to the implementation of the new programme was

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applied to this study. A broader perspective could have been taken to investigate stakeholder practices and processes before the initiation of the new stakeholder programme, and thus going back prior 2010.

Ø This study focused only on a single case, which may limit the theory building potential of this study. As it was mentioned in previous sections, the selected company is a large multinational organisation and therefore, further insights could have been given through the comparison of stakeholder processes across the other organisations in various countries.

Ø Overall, the limited number of interviews conducted for this study may be seen as a limitation. At the same time, all managers part of the stakeholder programme were interviewed, including the CEO.

Ø The results of this study may be biased due to the inherent subjectivity of qualitative data research and that the researcher of this study was an intern at the researched organisation and thus her experiences may have biased her in data gathering and data analysis.

Ø This study investigated the organisational and managerial perspective of stakeholder management and thus the perspective of stakeholders were excluded to maintain the scope of the study.

3.7 Chapter Summary

This chapter revised and selected appropriate methodological approaches to address the research aims and objectives of this study. The following chapter will analyse the collected data relevant to the research questions of this study.

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Chapter 4. Empirical Findings

4.1 Introduction of Vodafone Netherlands

Vodafone Netherlands is the operating company of Vodafone Group, which is a global telecommunications company present in about thirty countries worldwide and which employs about 85 thousand people and serves about 400 million customers. In the Netherlands, Vodafone’s main communications services comprise of mobile, fixed, integrated and TV, which cater to about 5 million customers. Vodafone is also a significant employer in the Netherlands, employing about 4000 employees in its various offices across the country. Vodafone Netherlands is divided into various business units; HR, Property and Internal Communication, Commercial Operations, Corporate Affairs & Strategy, Finance, Technology, Consumer Market, Enterprise Market and Shops.

The overall strategy of Vodafone Netherlands comprises of five strategic pillars: 1. Great Place to Work; 2. The Easiest Place to do Business, 3. Building for the Future, 4. Playful and Connected Brand, 5. Leading and Improved Reputation. Stakeholder management is integrated in the company’s overall strategy, through the fifth strategic pillar, signifying that stakeholder management is integral part of this organisation’s culture and operations.

4.2 Perception of stakeholders

“[…] the collection of groups that are affected by or make a contribution to, or are influenced or interested in the things that we do in the company. It’s a very wide set of customer, employees, partners, suppliers, policy makers, regulators, NGOs, social groups.” [Interviewee 1]

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On the organisational level, most of the managers agreed regarding the definition of stakeholders with the above quote. Others also added stakeholders such as investors, the Group organisation, the media, pressure groups. On the individual level, managers viewed and named certain individuals as stakeholders. Interestingly, all respondents identified employees as being an important stakeholder group. Therefore, stakeholders were not only identified outside of the company but also inside of the company, which one manager illustrated in terms of the social and economic impact the company can have on its employees and community.

“In Maastricht Vodafone is a very important employer and there was an uproar when Vodafone decided to move part of its headquarters to Amsterdam, because it was seen as sort of an insult with economic consequences to that part of the Netherlands. […] That had a tremendous economic impact on the area, because a number of high level people moved to Amsterdam. But also a number of people didn’t leave, didn’t come to Amsterdam, stayed in Maastricht. They were unemployed for a while, but I think they are doing okay now. But of course when people are unemployed, less disposable income is spent at a local shops so that has a tremendous impact.” [Interviewee 11]

Employees were not only seen as a critical stakeholder because of Vodafone’s social and economic impact, but also as the driver of Vodafone’s sustainable success.

“If we don’t have our own people energized, inspired, focused, trained, effective. If we don’t keep the people we need, and attract the people that we don’t have we will never be successful.” [Interviewee 1/CEO]

When the researcher asked managers to draw or list their stakeholders based on how they perceive them, three main forms emerged in most of the managers’ view of stakeholders: (1)

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firm or department centric (2) the organisation’s position in the wider stakeholder context (3) stakeholders around managers’ responsibility and role.

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Based on the analysis of drawings, stakeholders were illustrated in term of stakeholders’ strength of relationship to the organisation, and in terms of stakeholders’ possible influence on Vodafone. Hence, the majority of drawings showed Vodafone as being part of the wider stakeholder context. However, there were three drawings where Vodafone, the managers’ department or the stakeholder was placed in the center of the drawing.

There was only one surprise in the perception of stakeholders from a manager who firmly argued that stakeholders are only internal to the organisation and thus stakeholders are limited to employees. Even though the manager is in contact with external stakeholders, such as advertising agencies for example, they were not seen as stakeholders due to their perceived lack of decision-making power. Rather they were seen as a “support function”. This manager also illustrated stakeholders in the form of an organisational chart. At the same time, this exception fits in all the interviewed managers’ definition that stakeholders are the ones who influence, or are influenced by the organisation, and that employees are stakeholders. However, the difference appears to be that all the other managers also identified and acknowledged external stakeholder to Vodafone.

One could argue that the inside and outside orientation of managers in terms of organisational boundaries to some extent depends on managers’ role, but also on their subjective view of stakeholders. As it was shown before, stakeholders may vary depending on managers’ area of expertise or role in the organisation. Hence, the perception and definition of stakeholders may vary from an organisational level, where typically groups and organisations were identified broadly, to the individual level where stakeholders were defined and identified per project or per managerial role or responsibility.

Most managers found it difficult to draw their stakeholders and thus some managers kept to their own role within the organisation or a project to identify stakeholders. The data it

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showed that the difficulty of drawing stakeholders may be due to the complexity and dynamism of stakeholders.

“At ACM, you have about 300 people working, not all are working on telecoms but on telecoms I would say there are about 150 are dedicated, dedicated all kinds of specialists, that depends on certain aspects of our business. And at the ministry you have 50 people also dealing with their specialisms.” [Interviewee 3]

It appeared that managers perceive stakeholders to be part of a complex system where stakeholders not only interact with the organisation, but also with each other creating an interconnected world of different actors with varying expertise and interests.

The relationship with stakeholders were seen paramount to managers, as the relationship they have with their individual stakeholders was considered to have an effect on the relationship between the organisation and its stakeholder groups. However, this relationship – both on the individual and organisational level – was characterized by, on the one hand, (1) cooperative, on the other hand, (2) opposing.

“[…] they feel quite close, also because we have a good relationship, but also because they understand us. They see what we mean and we see what they mean. We get al.ong quite well. Others we see are very powerful and can be really tough on us, parliament can be really tough on us, some influential stakeholders and consumer interest groups as well.” [Interviewee 8]

Whilst stakeholders can hugely support an organisation in its operations and initiatives through joint efforts and mutual interest, stakeholders may also hinder organisations through their power, authority or influence over an organisation or its environment.

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4.3 Organisation of stakeholder management 4.3.1 Processes

Vodafone’s current stakeholder programme is in place for about two years when a new CEO joined the company. In 2010, the then newly joining CEO felt the need to systemize stakeholder management within the company in order to improve the company’s reputation, a pressing issue which was meant to be tackled by a structured approach to identify stakeholder demands and problems grouped to particular stakeholders. The current stakeholder programme is part of the overall strategy of the company, namely, ‘an improved and leading reputation’. However, the responsibility of the programme mainly lies with the CEO and within the Corporate Affairs and Strategy department, and only partially the ‘Enterprise’ as well as the ‘Commercial Business Unit’ of the organisation.

“[…] what we achieved was a clear list of stakeholders that need to be managed. And we also identified what we believed were the main drivers for what they were their opinion of us or our reputation. And now we try and manage it in a more deliberate way; by stakeholder, by driver, by interaction. […]. I think the programme is partially a governance process that gives all of us a visibility on the issues, the gaps, the progress and the communications’ strategy and it’s delivering that. In that respect the programme is successful. [Interviewee 1/CEO]

‘Be good and tell it’, the policy’s axiom means to ‘Be good’ and thus solve the problems areas or ‘gaps’ identified to the specific ‘driver’/stakeholder topic or stakeholder organisation or group. ‘Tell it’ denotes that the act of solving stakeholder problems ought to be communicated to stakeholders through various media channels. Part of the ‘reputation grid’ (refer to Appendix 7), various ‘drivers’ are identified and within those key drivers which signify ‘enablers’ - such as network performance, customer service and sustainable solution – through which desired ‘behaviors’ - such as reliable and in control, responsiveness – and

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‘effects’ – such as economic contribution and innovation, challenger, thought leadership, attractive employer – may be achieved. To each of the drivers a workshop team is assigned and so this team follows the development of stakeholder issues. Hence, the organisational policy aims to cut through the complexity of stakeholder groups and their interests through delegation to senior and middle management teams based on managers’ role and responsibilities within the organisation. Furthermore, bi-monthly, the latest developments are discussed in a ‘Steering Committee’ meeting with senior management from all business units and the CEO. During this meeting a strategic approach is discussed to various issues.

According to the CEO and the Director of the Corporate Affairs and Strategy department, the hierarchical aspect of the programme is critical. If, for example, there is an urgent matter with stakeholders on a higher level in the ministry for example, then the CEO would go for a meeting with the stakeholder and then managers who are an expert in the stakeholders’ topic would assist the CEO in the meeting.

“If something really needs to be escalated or we really feel to engage with the higher levels of those organisations, then we also organise meetings or calls or email from [the Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategy] or if it’s very important [the CEO] will send an email or have a meeting with certain people.” [Interviewee 16]

When identifying stakeholders, managers used two criteria; (1) the influence of the stakeholder on the operations of Vodafone and (2) their role within the organisation. The influence of the stakeholder manifested itself in various forms such as the power of regulating the market, authority in the field, decision-making power, and interconnectedness with other stakeholders. While there is much overlap between stakeholders, managers have a set of stakeholder groups or individuals that they are responsible for within their own position in the company.

The importance of stakeholder engagement practices to drive the corporate social sustainability of firms : a multilevel and combined approach to the perception of stakeholders, organisation and outcomes of stakeholder m

Final Draft of Master Thesis