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Scanning both the academic and popular business literature of the last 40 years puzzles the alert reader. The variety of prescriptions of how to be successful (effective, performing, etc.) 1 Organizational performance, organizational success and organizational effectiveness will be used interchangeably throughout this paper.1 in business is hardly comprehensible: “Being close to the customer,” Total Quality Management, corporate social responsibility, shareholder value maximization, efficient consumer response, management reward systems or employee involvement programs are but a few of the slogans introduced as means to increase organizational effectiveness. Management scholars have made little effort to integrate the various performance-enhancing strategies or to assess them in an orderly manner.

This study classifies organizational strategies by the importance each strategy attaches to different constituencies in the firm’s environment. A number of researchers divide an organization’s environment into various constituency groups and argue that these groups constitute – as providers and recipients of resources – the basis for organizational survival and well-being. Some theoretical schools argue for the foremost importance of responsiveness to certain constituencies while stakeholder theory calls for a – situation-contingent – balance in these responsiveness levels. Given that maximum responsiveness levels to different groups may be limited by an organization’s resource endowment or even counterbalanced, the need exists for a concurrent assessment of these competing claims by jointly evaluating the effect of the respective behaviors towards constituencies on performance. Thus, this study investigates the competing merits of implementing alternative business philosophies (e.g. balanced versus focused responsiveness to constituencies). Such a concurrent assessment provides a “critical test” of multiple, opposing theories rather than testing the merits of one theory (Carlsmith, Ellsworth & Aronson, 1976).

In the high tolerance level applied for this study (be among the top 80% of the industry) only a handful of organizations managed to sustain such a balanced strategy over the whole observation period. Continuously monitoring stakeholder demands and crafting suitable responsiveness strategies must therefore be a focus of successful business strategies. While such behavior may not be a sufficient explanation for organizational success, it certainly is a necessary one.

This chapter examines the literature surrounding stakeholder theory. Section 2.2 outlines the nature of what is a stakeholder, whereas Section 2.3 overviews the literature on social accounting and reporting and details how it served as an antecedent to the specific literature on stakeholder management. Section 2.4 covers the mainstream literature on stakeholder management by examining the three distinct categories of stakeholder literature as outlined by Donaldson and Preston (1995): (1) descriptive; (2) instrumental; and (3) normative. The normative category includes a discussion on how the theory's fundamental aspects have been rejected outright by some authors, as a basis for a theory of the firm, due to the perceived paradox in relation to the firm's multi-fiduciary duty beyond the shareholder. Section 2.5 summarises the literature to date and outlines its main limitations, including the primary emphasis on seeking to normatively ground the theory. Section 2.6 then provides the conclusions with a table summarising the research objectives and outcomes.

Purpose – This chapter provides a theoretical and conceptual overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It is written as a descriptive document to enhance the understanding of CSR within the context of international business.Design/methodology/approach – This chapter is built based on an extensive literature review.Findings – This chapter contains six subsections. The first subsection looks at the concept of CSR, and it highlights the possible role of CSR in mitigating the negative consequences of globalisation. The second subsection looks at the evolution of CSR since the 1990s. The third section looks at ethics theories. The fourth section looks at political theories to explain CSR. The fifth section looks at the business case for CSR. And finally the sixth section looks at specific CSR initiatives.Practical implications – This chapter provides a response to the necessity for this analysis that arises from the effects of CSR actions in international business.Originality/value of chapter – This chapter provides a summary of the conceptual and theoretical framework of CSR. It could be used as a teaching tool for undergraduate and masters’ courses on either international business or corporate social responsibility.

This chapter is a speculative examination of the way in which theory is used in the social accounting literature. It is intended as an initial guide for those approaching the area for the first time; it is intended as a map for those in the field who would like to adopt a bigger picture for their work and it is intended as a wake-up call to those of us stuck in unconscious ruts. The chapter's departure point is the recognition that social accounting requires a reasonably sophisticated awareness of theory – not least because the subject matter itself is so contentious and conditional. The chapter's ambitions are to encourage a more evaluative and policy-based approach to the subject matter of social accounting; to offer a pedagogic basis to help others make some sense of theory in social accounting and to seek to empower and liberate social accounting scholars by assisting the range of their theorising. Social accounting scholars tend to approach the area with concerns and desires for liberation and possibility. Theory can help articulate those concerns and can support and encourage that desire. Above all, the chapter is explicitly partial, speculative and tentative, and it is not a formal or informed attempt to produce a theory of theories in social accounting. To articulate a range of the possible theories, we offer a simple heuristic through which we may navigate our way through the soup of concepts and perceptions that can blend into a potential infinity of ways of looking and seeing. We hope to encourage diversity and speculation rather than narrowness and alleged certainty.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship of the efficient management of shareholder value as the main objective of corporate governance systems with stakeholder theory.

Design/Methodology – The study uses data from 29 emerging market economies from 1997 to 2006. In order to control possible endogeneity issue, generalized two-stage least squares (G2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques were conducted using country-level panel data.

Findings – The results provide evidence that the efficient management of shareholder value is strongly associated with managers' credibility, social responsibility, employment, and customer satisfaction, suggesting that emerging market economies should consider the interests of stakeholders for the efficient management of shareholder value.

Originality/Value – This is the first study of its kind that attempts to explore the association of the efficient management of shareholder value with country-level determinants of stakeholder theory.

Research Limitations/Implications – The lack of sufficient data is a major problem in international studies. This study also has some limitations in this respect as some emerging economies have not been included in the sample.