LouRIM Research Seminar by Prof. Flore Bridoux (University of Amsterdam)

Title: When do powerful stakeholders give managers the latitude to balance all stakeholders’ interests?

Abstract:

Recent research in instrumental stakeholder theory has often discussed the benefits of a stakeholder strategy balancing all stakeholders’ interests as if the firm’s managers were not constrained much in choosing a stakeholder strategy. Yet, through their decision to join, stay, or leave the firm and their value appropriation behavior, stakeholders with high bargaining power can significantly constrain managers’ choices. Our objective is therefore to understand when powerful stakeholders will give managers the latitude to balance all stakeholders’ interests, rather than forcing them to cater primarily to their own interests. Building on ideas about enlightened self-interest and insights from the justice literature, we identify five drivers of powerful stakeholders’ value appropriation behavior. We next explore how a stakeholder strategy that serves all stakeholders’ interests, which managers can only adopt if powerful stakeholders give them the latitude, can make some of the drivers of powerful stakeholders’ value appropriation behavior more salient than others.

Short bio

Flore Bridoux is an Associate Professor of Strategy at the University of Amsterdam. She received her PhD in management from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. Her current research focuses on the management of stakeholders and human capital. In particular, she studies how firms can be designed to motivate stakeholders to cooperate in situations in which individual and collective interest conflict. Her work has been published in, among others, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management, and Strategic Management Journal. She is an Associate Editor for Organization & Environment, she is on the Editorial Board of Academy of Management Journal and Strategic Organization, and serves as ad-hoc reviewer for many journals and conferences. She is program director of the Research MSc ‘Business in Society’. She teaches courses in the MSc Business Administration program and the Research MSc.