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Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 3/2016

29-03-2015

Stakeholder Relationships, Engagement, and Sustainability Reporting

Authors: Irene M. Herremans, Jamal A. Nazari, Fereshteh Mahmoudian

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 3/2016

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Abstract

The concept of sustainability was developed in response to stakeholder demands. One of the key mechanisms for engaging stakeholders is sustainability disclosure, often in the form of a report. Yet, how reporting is used to engage stakeholders is understudied. Using resource dependence and stakeholder theories, we investigate how companies within the same industry address different dependencies on stakeholders for economic, natural environment, and social resources and thus engage stakeholders accordingly. To achieve this objective, we conducted our research using qualitative research methods. Our findings suggest that the resource dependencies on different stakeholders lead to development of different stakeholder relationships and thus appropriate resources within the company to execute engagement strategies that are informing, responding, or involving. Our research explains why diversity exists in sustainability disclosure by studying how it is used to engage stakeholders. We find that five sustainability reporting characteristics are associated with the company’s stakeholder engagement strategy: directness of communication, clarity of stakeholder identity, deliberateness of collecting feedback, broadness of stakeholder inclusiveness, and utilization of stakeholder engagement for learning. Our study develops the literature by providing insight into companies’ choices of stakeholder engagement strategy thus explaining diversity in sustainability reporting based on the characteristics and relationships with specific stakeholders.
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Footnotes
1
The ERCB regulated energy activities in Alberta, Canada, the province in which most of the energy production on land takes place. The ERCB was just recently re-organized as the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).
 
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Metadata
Title
Stakeholder Relationships, Engagement, and Sustainability Reporting
Authors
Irene M. Herremans
Jamal A. Nazari
Fereshteh Mahmoudian
Publication date
29-03-2015
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 3/2016
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2634-0

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