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This chapter explores the strategic responsiveness of commodity multinationals operating in developing countries to the uncertainties raised by the emergent European Union (EU) sustainability regulation. The study applies deductive theory triangulation to derive five response propositions, subsequently contrasted with inductive insights from an exploratory single-case study. The research involves in-depth interviews with a mix of senior and middle management and numerous external stakeholders. Empirical findings are discussed through storytelling and retrospective sensemaking and cross-checked against corporate documents, archive material, and online articles for added validation. This chapter concludes that an authentic commitment to corporate social responsibility and creating shared value can enhance the multinational enterprise (MNE)’s resilience and responsiveness to regulatory uncertainty, especially when combined with early signal scanning and real options reasoning. Through varied, first-hand insights, the case study demonstrates the role of reputation, core values, and ethical leadership in support of effective stakeholder engagement capabilities and the MNE’s ability to develop viable collaborative solutions to uncertainties implied by evolving sustainability regulation and stakeholder expectations. Taking an evolutionary view, this chapter introduces a process perspective on sustainability transition, relevant to firms seeking a shift in focus from mere compliance toward strategic responsiveness founded on adaptability and renewal.

Published in June 2020, the European Union (EU) Taxonomy Regulation is an important tool for the reorientation of capital flows toward sustainability, establishing a classification system that enables investors to identify green economic activities. Confronted by the reporting demands of this regulation, companies are caught in a sustainability economic revolution. This study seeks primarily to understand firms’ responses to the EU taxonomy, and whether they recognize value creation opportunities by aligning market and nonmarket strategies with the taxonomy goals. For that, we conducted expert interviews and adopted a conceptual framework based on institutional theory, dynamic capabilities view and nonmarket strategy research. Our findings indicate that most firms respond reactively, while firms with sustainability-driven business models tend to respond in an anticipatory way, and firms with high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and low taxonomy eligibility in a defensive way. We also find evidence for mimetic isomorphism related to the influence of consulting and auditing services. Further, high levels of uncertainty, ambiguity and lack of clarity has a great impact on firms’ responses and motives. Finally, this study highlights the EU taxonomy considering a paradigmatic shift toward sustainability, which is not recognized by most firms. To this end, we find that most companies have not identified opportunities arising from nonmarket integration and, rather, see the taxonomy only as an extra regulation to be compliant with. Hence, we argue that it is crucial that firms contextualize the taxonomy within its larger institutional paradigmatic shift to capture the importance of going beyond mere compliance.

Conventional wisdom says stakeholders matter to managers as they develop strategy – but do they? If so, what type of stakeholders matter and what can managers do?

An in-depth exploration of five deep case studies where senior executives embarked upon strategy development. Analysis revealed five significant factors for managing stakeholders effectively.

These findings include: determining the nature of a stakeholder, separating those who care about the strategy and its implementation from those who do not but still could impact it; addressing stakeholders at an appropriate level; considering internal as well as external stakeholders and attending to the stakeholders’ responses to proposed strategies and the consequent dynamics created.

(1) The research was conducted with senior managers, and the authors detail the difficulties involved in doing so within the introduction and (2) The research was specific to the healthcare sector, but has relevance to all strategy makers.

This paper explores five factors and their implications and suggests techniques to address them that are well established and available to promote the effective strategic management of stakeholders.

Empirical research in strategy formation with elites is rare because it is difficult to gain access and trust. Empirical research in stakeholder studies is even rarer. By combining the two elements, the authors gather and interpret a unique dataset.

Competitiveness is an important personality trait that has been studied in various disciplines and has been shown to predict critical work outcomes at the individual level. Despite this, the role of competitiveness in groups and teams has received scant attention amongst organizational researchers. Aiming to promote future research on the role of competitiveness as both an adaptive and maladaptive trait – particularly in the context of work – the authors review competitiveness and its effects on individual and team stress and Well-Being, giving special attention to the processes of cohesion and conflict and situational moderators. The authors illustrate a dynamic multilevel model of individual and team difference factors, competitive processes, and individual and team outcomes to highlight competitiveness as a consequential occupational stressor. Furthermore, the authors discuss the feedback loops that inform the different factors, highlight important avenues for future research, and offer practical solutions for managers to reduce unhealthy competition.

This chapter offers a theoretical framework to explore the relationship between resilience, wellbeing, and authentic leadership through the students’ transition from high school to university. It highlights how student leaders can thrive despite the challenges they face throughout this transition. First, the author presents an overview of resilience research, specifically by defining key characteristics of resilient students, followed by the outline of the four waves of resilience research. Next, the author describes the construct of wellbeing and the common characteristics among the wellbeing models in relation to the general university student population, as well as student leaders. Next, the author reviews the authentic leadership theory, including its key components of authentic leadership, the psychological capabilities for authentic leadership, and how resilience manifests in authentic leaders. The author concludes with an overview of transitional periods, critical life events, and their manifestations in the transition from high school to university.

This paper aims to illustrate how service ecosystem governance may provide a suitable ground to pursue holistic resilience to “wicked” socio-economic and ecological problems, for enhancing “place-based” sustainable performance outcomes through an organizational, interorganizational and context setting.

This work suggests the use of “place-based” collaborative ecosystem platforms driven by a dynamic performance governance approach as a setting where facilitated performance dialogue is carried out among networked stakeholders. This fosters a holistic view of performance sustainability where intangibles, inertial, cultural and behavioral factors play a key role in policy analysis.

The paper illustrates how different research streams framing stakeholder relationships under a business, hybrid organization and public sector perspective converge toward the “service ecosystem” construct, as a common field for sustainable “place-based” value creation. This performance governance perspective frames accountability for achieving sustainable outcomes through interconnected viewpoints, i.e. (1) time (short vs long-term), (2) subject (single organization, “theme-focused” service ecosystem and “place-based” service ecosystem) and (3) field (socio-economic, cultural and ecological).

This work has an interdisciplinary track. It recommends feedback and “stock-and-flow” modeling to enhance framing counterintuitive patterns of behavior of dynamic complex socio-economic, cultural and ecological subsystems within “place-based” collaborative ecosystem platforms. Combining an inside-out with an outside-in view triggers sustainable outcome-based dynamic performance governance through an organizational, interorganizational and context setting.