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The purpose of this paper is to examine stakeholder power and engagement within an increasingly competitive English seaside resort setting. It aims to adopt a structuralist and functionalist perspective and develop an enabling conceptualisation of power that incorporates structural and agency components in stakeholders’ reasons for engaging. Based on the conceptual interdependencies between stakeholder power and engagement, this study aims to present the limitations of previous studies on destination leadership in this area, and this paper also seeks to discuss implications for destination leadership.

As a qualitative and exploratory study, mixed-method research was adopted using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with destination stakeholders from a prominent tourism action group. The primary research was carried out in an English seaside resort between 2010 and 2011. Data are used to draw a stakeholder map as a visual tool.

Eight elements of enabling power are confirmed to be of importance in identifying stakeholder power and engagement. The level of power varies depending on stakeholders’ position within a network. These findings direct attention towards adopting a complexity leadership approach in an increasingly competitive destination environment.

The paper focuses on an English seaside resort, although results can be transferred to other similar-sized destinations where the focus is on local tourism policy development.

The paper provides an innovative conceptualisation of power in stakeholder theory by drawing primarily on a sociological understanding of power as an enabler and not as an inhibitor for development, leadership and change in seaside resorts. This paper uses leadership theories to interpret data and infer implications for destination leadership.

This study examines the association between Chief Executive Officer (CEO) power and the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, as well as the moderating role of stakeholder influence on this association.

Using a sample of 986 Bangladeshi firm-year observations, this study uses a content analysis technique to develop a 24-item CSR disclosure index. The ordinary least squares regression method is used to estimate the research models, controlling for firm-specific factors that potentially affect the levels of CSR disclosure.

The study findings indicate that CEO power is negatively associated with the level of CSR disclosure, and that the negative effects of CEO power on the level of CSR disclosure are attenuated by stakeholder influence. CEO power is documented as reducing the positive impact of CSR disclosure on a firm’s financial performance, with this negative impact attenuated if stakeholders have greater influence on the firm.

This study suggests that CEO power and stakeholder influence are important factors in determining firms’ incentives to disclose CSR information. Both CEO power and stakeholder influence need to be considered in the CSR – firm performance nexus, given the mixed findings documented in the literature.

This study makes a significant contribution to the literature on CSR practices by documenting that firms with a powerful CEO have lower levels of CSR disclosure, and that stakeholder influence affects CSR disclosure in the emerging economy context.

This paper aims to explore the power of one of the primary organizational stakeholders (shareholders) in the development of a corporate social performance (CSP) score. Few research works in the CSP empirical literature have studied the relationship between stakeholder power and CSP.

Stakeholder theory is used as a theoretical framework to explain how shareholder voting power can influence the CSP level of French publicly listed companies. Stakeholder theory is tested through the operationalization of Ullmann’s (1985) three-dimensional model. Hypotheses related to shareholder voting power, strategic posture and financial performance are formulated through a literature review. A Data Envelopment Analysis approach was presented as a strong tool to measure CSP level. Multiple linear regressions were undertaken to test the hypotheses in a sample of 129 French companies between 2006 and 2007.

The results indicate that companies with dispersed ownership and high proportion of institutional shareholders record a high score of CSP. Strategic posture measured by the implementation of environmental certification standard was positively and significantly related to CSP. Financial performance does not affect significantly the level of CSP.

This paper is the first to empirically analyse the relationship between Ullmann’s three-dimensional model and CSP level in the French context. It offers to managers a better understanding of the power that certain stakeholders can use to acquire satisfaction.

This paper aims to explore how the power of salient stakeholders involved in the green waste management of franchise chains can impact the ability of the chains to change their green practices.

This qualitative study is based on interview data from 19 franchisors and their head office staff operating in the fast-food sector in France where franchise chains have been ‘named and shamed’ as continuing to ignore waste management regulation.

The findings suggest that both the form and bases of power of different stakeholder groups have important implications for the implementation of green practices, even those required by law. The authors find that the franchisees’ central network position alters the ability of franchisors to directly engage in dialog, consult with, and educate key stakeholders, creating additional challenges for franchisors in the implementation process.

The qualitative nature of the study limits the extent to which the findings can be generalized. Future studies could develop an instrument to assess franchisor perceptions of stakeholder power.

The findings suggest that franchisors should consider carefully how they communicate changes to green practices to their franchisees to ensure not only their compliance but also their motivation to engage with those stakeholders with whom they have regular interactions. The findings can also help governments to better understand how to involve other stakeholders to ensure effective environmental legislation.

The study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to consider the role of stakeholders in the implementation of green practices in franchise chains. By examining franchise chains, this paper provides new insights into the role of an additional stakeholder, the franchisee, and enriches the literature on green practices in the hospitality sector.

This paper uses a stakeholder approach to examine how the role of accounting and the status of accountants changed over a 30 year period (1970 to 2000) in a major Australian government trading enterprise. Data are gathered from semi‐structured interviews with organizational participants and documentation. The study provides support for the importance of stakeholders in shaping organizational processes and practices, including accounting practices, and for the effects of changes in stakeholder constituency and agenda on such practices. The study also provides evidence of the roles accounting and accountants may play in implementing a stakeholder agenda, including both instrumental and symbolic roles, and how the status of accountants may rise and fall commensurate with those roles.

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the interactions of key stakeholders and their impact upon corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the Zambian copper mining sector. In particular, the authors examine the power dynamics that emerge in the stakeholder interactions.

The authors analyse the stakeholder interactions based on the varying degrees of stakeholder salience and critical collaboration potential, and draw on rich evidence from 43 interviews with multiple stakeholders involved in CSR in the Zambia mining sector.

This paper finds stark power asymmetries in the relationship between the state, the civil society and mining companies which are exacerbated by a number of factors, including divisions within these key stakeholders themselves. Apart from power imbalances within and between stakeholders, the potential for critical collaboration at the local level is further challenged by the lack of commonly accepted social and environmental frameworks, transparency and accountability of the leadership of stakeholder groups. However, despite these power asymmetries some limited agency is possible, as civil society in particular co-opts previously dormant stakeholders to increase its own salience and, more importantly, that of the state.

This paper contributes to the literature on the key stakeholders’ interactions shaping CSR in developing countries by exploring these issues in a critical industry, the Zambian copper mining sector, on which the state economy is so heavily dependent.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of stakeholder dynamics and to show how stakeholders demonstrate their dynamic nature in the power/interest matrix. This, in turn, should assist project management and stakeholder management practitioners predict the behavior of different stakeholder groups in their projects, and strategize their stakeholder management approaches accordingly.

The findings in this paper are based on data collected from 12 diverse projects from five different business sectors executed in Norway by means of an online, closed-question questionnaire, which was analyzed using various statistical approaches.

Stakeholder dynamics is a contextual phenomenon, which takes different forms and shapes from one stakeholder group to the other, from one industry or business sector to the other, and even from one project to the other within the same industry or business sector. The stakeholder group of user(s) was the most dynamic in Norwegian projects based on their continuous repositioning on the power/interest matrix from one project phase to the other. Environmental activists/organizations were the least dynamic stakeholder group in the full sample of projects.

This paper presents the first more comprehensive empirically based findings about stakeholder dynamics in projects the authors have been able to find. The study gives project management practitioners insights from various industries and business sectors into how stakeholders change position over time. It also shows that the two attributes of power and interest are strongly connected and affect one another, which might make it possible to control and design a safer and less complex stakeholder environment for future projects.

Using a theoretical and empirical focus on the power stakeholders exert, the purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the factors that influence the subsidiaries of multinationals’ participation in corporate social responsibility (CSR) under the pressures (expectations and demands) their complex system of internal and external stakeholders’ places upon them.

Using an in-depth case study, the relationship a local subsidiary in the food and beverage industry has with its stakeholders as regards CSR is analyzed.

The findings illustrate three main aspects: how the local company is affected by and how it affects its stakeholders (an example of the multidirectionality of power and influence); the direct and indirect practices that are adopted to address challenges; and the importance of the role the local subsidiary plays as an implementer and diffuser of its parent organization’s responsible practices across the industry value chain.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, the focus is on analyzing the power stakeholders have in the context of multinational companies that has not been applied before, and the outcome of using this approach is that the authors have uncovered gaps in the literature for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrative framework for vulnerability analysis in social marketing systems by identifying, investigating and problematising the relationships among several interrelated concepts, including power, power asymmetry, vulnerability and resilience, in the context of social marketing systems.

This is a conceptual paper synthesising literature from social marketing, sociology and marketing management.

The main outcome of the discussion is a proposed integrative framework for vulnerability analysis. The framework identifies the main groups of stakeholders within a social marketing system and the bases for their power and consequential power asymmetries. It focusses on the types and states of vulnerability to identify the distinct characteristics of the social conditions of vulnerability for micro-level system actors. It leads to building positive resilience through efforts aiming to change the power asymmetries at the downstream, midstream and upstream levels.

The integrative framework for vulnerability analysis answers the call from Wood (2019) for the development of practical approaches to better understand resilience-building approaches in social marketing programmes. The framework provides reconciliation for diverse dimensions of vulnerability as a natural characteristic of all social marketing systems and as a universal, constant and inherent social condition.

The purpose of the study is to investigate differences between the perceptions of the Mayors and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of local government authorities (LGAs) with regards to the attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency of different identified stakeholder groups regarding their claims and needs concerning infrastructure assets. Stakeholder groups are categorised into those at the public level and those at higher-tier government level.

A survey of 420 LGAs throughout Australia was undertaken using an instrument developed from the constructs in Mitchell et al.’s (1997) theory of stakeholder identification and salience.

The results first reveal that there are more similarities than differences between the perceptions of the Mayors and CEOs with regard to stakeholder attributes of different stakeholder groups. Second, both Mayors and CEOs view stakeholders in infrastructure decision-making as largely “expectant dependant”. However, there is evidence that some biased priority may be accorded to the “public stakeholder” category over “higher-tier government” category because the CEO’s perception of the power of “public” stakeholders, together with the Mayor’s managerial values, is significantly positively related to their perceptions of the salience of these “public” stakeholders, but not “higher-tier government” stakeholders. However the results of the analysis change in the combined sample of the Mayor and CEO, making both categories of stakeholders as “definitive” in infrastructure decision-making.

The results of this study are subject to the usual limitation of mail surveys, including biases that can arise in respondents’ rating based on their perceptions. The findings have implications for the process of infrastructure decision-making in local governments.

This paper contributes to the literature, providing evidence on how Mayors and CEOs of local governments prioritise the needs, interests and claims of different stakeholders with respect to infrastructure assets.