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The environment in which public administrators are working is increasingly becoming one that is based on network relationships and expectations for active collaboration. Within this evolving environment the value preferences of administrators are subject to challenge and possible change. This article offers an approach to understand the dynamics of value preferences of public administrators through the lenses of stakeholder theory and bureaucratic responsiveness. A set of propositions are offered for future empirical study and to begin a discussion on the relationship between responsiveness, value creation, and the ultimate achievement of successful collaboration

To test how responsiveness to key organizational stakeholders (owners, customers, employees) is related to organizational effectiveness (OE). Focused versus balanced strategies of responsiveness are compared.

Employs Boolean algebra to study performance of 69 companies in three industries over a ten‐year period. Responsiveness to key stakeholders and performance are measured using publicly available data provided by these organizations (Compustat by Standard & Poor's).

Provides evidence that balanced responsiveness to multiple constituencies is more likely to lead to high OE than focused responsiveness to a single one. Trade‐offs in responsiveness to key stakeholders are found supporting the idea that serving multiple interests is challenging. Most results are not industry‐specific – the usefulness of a balanced strategy of responsiveness may be generalized.

Responsiveness embraces organizational behaviors not covered by accounting information. Development of more comprehensive responsiveness measures may be a fruitful avenue for further research. Analyses are limited to a subset of key stakeholders and three industries.

Provides evidence that organizations avoiding extreme unresponsiveness to any of its key stakeholders are more effective. Aiming for above‐average responsiveness to any constituency only pays off if no other constituency simultaneously enjoys below‐average responsiveness.

This article develops a comprehensive methodological framework to assess strategies comparing balanced versus focused responsiveness to multiple organizational constituencies. Empirical results should be of relevance to strategy practitioners and scholars alike.

This study aims to evaluate corporate sustainability integration by evaluating corporate practices against the sustainability principles of inclusivity, materiality, responsiveness and impact outlined in AccountAbility’s AA1000 Accountability Principles (AA1000AP) standard.

Data comprise 12 semi-structured interviews with senior managers of listed New Zealand companies. Findings are evaluated against AccountAbility’s principles of inclusivity, materiality, responsiveness and impact, which are based on a normative view of stakeholder theory.

In terms of inclusivity, stakeholder engagement is primarily monologic and is directed more towards traditional stakeholder groups. However, social media, which is gaining popularity, has the potential to facilitate greater dialogic stakeholder engagement. While most companies undertake a materiality assessment (with varying degrees of rigour) to support sustainability reporting, only some use it to drive planning and decision-making. Companies demonstrate responsiveness to stakeholder concerns through corporate governance and sustainability initiatives. Companies are monitoring and measuring their impact on stakeholders using sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs). However, measuring traditional metrics is easier than measuring areas such as the community. In rare instances, the executive’s remuneration is linked to these sustainability KPIs.

The study findings offer useful examples of the integration of sustainability into corporate processes and systems. Practitioners may find the insights useful in understanding how sustainability is currently being integrated into corporate practices by best practice New Zealand companies. Regulators may consider incorporating AA1000AP into their corporate governance guidelines. Finally, academics may find the study useful for teaching business and accounting courses and to guide the next generation of business managers.

First, the study brings together four streams of research on how sustainability reports are prepared (inclusivity, materiality, responsiveness and impact) in a single study. Second, the findings offer novel insights by evaluating corporate sustainability against the requirements of a standard that has received little academic attention.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate social responsiveness and organizational characteristics. Using a ratio comparing the number of environmental disclosures that are made internally by the firm with external environmental disclosures (Environmental Disclosure Index), an empirical analysis was done using data from 24 chemical companies. The study's results showed that there was an inverse relationship between the firm's social responsiveness and the firm's size and a positive relationship with the firm's financial performance. The study's results did not indicate a significant relationship between the level of corporate social responsiveness and the capital expenditures and pollution emissions released by the firms.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a higher status of one stakeholder group relates to the outcomes of stakeholder–organization relationship with other lower status stakeholder groups.

This conceptual paper uses insights from resource dependence theory while applying the tenets of social dominance theory (SDT) to develop a model with testable propositions explaining the variability with regard to stakeholder dominance and the resulting outcome in terms of (un)favorable organizational responsiveness to other stakeholder demands.

Firm’s behavior or decisions regarding a particular stakeholder group may be influenced by dominant hierarchical status of another stakeholder group if the latter considers that their respective interests are misaligned and is not willing to compromise. The argument build in this paper indicates that it is likely that the influence of the dominant stakeholder group will undermine stakeholders from a subordinate group.

This paper contributes to two distinct literature streams. First, this paper extends research on stakeholder responsiveness exploring the triadic relationship, particularly focusing on stakeholders’ perspective that has been given much less attention in prior literature. Second, this paper extends the application of the SDT to a stakeholder relationship context potentially allowing for a more parsimonious theory.

This paper aims to critically analyse the content of the assurance statements of corporate sustainability reports to examine the degree to which assurance statements enhance and uphold organisational transparency and accountability to stakeholders.

This framework of content analysis draws on a research instrument developed by O’Dwyer and Owen (2005), as well as the most recent assurance guidelines (Global Reporting Initiative) and standards AA1000AS, 2008 and ISAE 3000.

Due to the lack of stakeholders’ engagement in the assurance process, due to the scope limitation placed on the assurance engagement and due to the reluctance of the assuror to address the assurance statements to the stakeholders groups, sustainability assurance practice cannot be considered as the accountability enabler. With persistent focus on internal systems, process, data generation and data capture, assurance practice is serving more as an internal control tool than as a social accounting/auditing instrument.

A single country context is studied. However, to the extent that assurances are conducted using common sets of assurance standards and guidelines, there is external validity of the findings.

Despite the institutional initiatives by the global and local institutions regarding social and environmental sustainability reporting and assurance, the assurance practice has not yet emerged as a tool of social accountability.

This study provides a comprehensive and up-to-date empirical assessment of the degree to which the sustainability assurance practice encompasses the issue of stakeholders’ interests and forms the potential basis for policy implications to the assurance practice and to the assurance standard setting process.

Societal developments and stakeholder awareness place responsibility and legitimacy high on corporate agendas. Increased awareness heightens focus on stakeholder relations and dialogue as key aspects in corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate identity and corporate communication scholarship, but the question remains how can dialogue be initiated and maintained? The purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for conceptualizing dialogue.

Through a review of CSR, corporate identity, corporate communication and stakeholder literature, a framework is developed taking into account the different stakes held by key stakeholder groups, i.e. consumers, investors, employees, non‐governmental organization and suppliers. Based on the discursive terms of form and script, we argue that different stakes condition different dialogical types.

The paper argues that the stakeholder orientations of the CSR, corporate identity and corporate communication disciplines can aid in strengthening dialogue. It is thus suggested that dialogue may be strengthened by constructing a framework which links the stakes held by key stakeholder groups to specific dialogue forms and scripts.

The practical implication of articulating stakeholder dialogue as scripted interaction is that organizations seeking to engage stakeholders strategically must understand and respect conventions and expectations.

The paper's contribution is to expand the notion of dialogue within communication research and to provide organizations with a framework for understanding stakeholder involvement in identity relevant issues of responsibility and legitimacy.

This study aims to examine intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) on Twitter by 60 of the world’s largest companies and explains the main themes communicated to stakeholders. The second objective is to determine which topics provoke most stakeholders’ reactions.

The authors perform content analysis on more than 42,000 tweets to examine ICD practices along with the reactions of stakeholders in the form of retweets and “favorites” toward the information disclosed.

Intellectual capital (IC) is an important theme in corporate disclosure practices, as more than one-third of the published tweets refer to IC. The world’s largest companies focus on relational capital information, followed by human and structural capital. The main IC themes disclosed were management philosophy, corporate reputation and business partnering. Tweets related to IC are of greater interest to stakeholders than other tweets and provoke more reactions. There is no complete consistency between the topics most intensively disclosed by companies and those that elicit the most vivid responses from the addressees.

This study offers an understanding of the world’s largest companies’ practices that refer to ICD via social media and has implications for organizations in the creation and use of communication channels when developing a dialogue with stakeholders on topics regarding IC that may lead to better management of IC performance.

This paper is a response to the call for studies on ICD via social media, which is strongly highlighted in the recent literature concerning future research on IC and until now was almost absent in the field of business units. This research provides in-depth insights into the use of Twitter to disclose IC elements and indicates which fields and topics of this disclosure provoke stakeholders’ reactions, which is a novelty in ICD studies.

This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to examine the extent of academic knowledge of sustainability materiality research. There is no academic review of this field; therefore, this study aims to close this research gap.

The paper systematically reviews the existing literature on sustainability materiality research. Papers were qualitatively classified and analysed in accordance with the theoretical underpinning, research methods and academic themes of sustainability materiality research.

The findings of the review show that scholarly work on sustainability materiality has increased exponentially since the 2010s. In terms of research methods, scholars have examined sustainability using content analysis techniques and qualitative approaches. A common theoretical foundation was missing, but an increasing number of articles have been anchored to stakeholder theory. The academic themes have progressively enriched empirical evidence on the evaluation of materiality in sustainability information.

This review can be useful as an academic basis to open avenues for strengthening theoretical and empirical research on new emerging issues regarding double materiality and dynamic materiality.

This paper conducts the first SLR of academic knowledge on sustainability materiality research. Eight academic themes are proposed to classify sustainability materiality. Thus, it is an aid to future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the integrated report (IR) of a South African public university (UFS), by comparing it with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) framework, to verify whether UFS IR matches the IIRC framework main aims, which is integrating IC and non-IC information into a single report for stakeholders.

The paper employs the case study approach, which is appropriate when a researcher needs to conduct a holistic and in-depth analysis of a complex phenomenon in its real-life context. As such, this method is particularly suitable for exploring intellectual and social capitals, which is complex and context-dependent by nature.

UFS IR includes the content elements of the IIRC framework as labels, but it does not deepen their meaning. As regards the IIRC guidelines principles, the analysis of the UFS IR shows that it does not seem to follow them. Briefly, the data do not have an outlook orientation, the information is not interconnected, the stakeholder relationships are not highlighted and the organisational ability to create value is not disclosed.

The implications based on the “bad” experience of UFS IR aims to extend the findings of the case study by shedding light on the levers and the barriers that managers have to face when implementing an IRing project in their organisations.

To the best of the knowledge the research is the first investigating the IR theme in the public sector, specifically the higher education sector, dealing with disclosing IC (and non-IC) information within a new reporting mode: the IR.