While most studies on stakeholder engagement focus on high‐power stakeholders (typically, employees), limited attention has been devoted to the engagement of low‐power stakeholders. These have been defined as vulnerable stakeholders for their low capacity to influence corporations. Our research is framed around the engagement of low‐power stakeholders in the coffee industry who are, paradoxically, critical resource providers for the major roasters. Through the case study of Lavazza—the leading Italian roaster—we investigate empowerment actions addressed to smallholder farmers located in Brazil, India, East Africa, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. We contribute to the theoretical discussion around engagement and empowerment by developing a framework linking together areas of empowerment (defined in the literature) and specific empowerment actions (emerging from our interviews). Our insights shed light on how organizations can design empowerment strategies leading to more effective stakeholder engagement and how empowerment actions can contribute to turn low‐power stakeholders into active business partners. We demonstrate that moving from a traditional competitive view of corporate–stakeholder relationships to a stakeholder theory view based on a logic of cooperative partnerships reinforces the idea that stakeholder engagement and empowerment are both entangled with the value creation process.

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This paper investigates whether generation matters in the intention to buy green and sustainable products and, simultaneously, examines the antecedents of green and sustainable buying behaviour among three different generational cohorts (X, Y, and Z). By doing this, the present paper fills the gap regarding studies addressing the relationships between age and sustainable behaviour which have not included actual green and sustainable buying intention, along with the gap regarding studies only focussing on one or two (X and Y) generational cohorts. Drawing on the generational cohort theory, and by using a survey approach involving three samples of specific generations (X, Y, and Z), as well as by testing several hypotheses through ordinary least squares regression models, the paper finds that: (a) age plays a key role in the choice of green and socially friendly products, and (b) environmental concern and perceived consumer effectiveness are strong antecedents of green and sustainable purchase behaviour for all generational cohorts. This is also true for environmental citizenship, but this only applies to generations Y and Z.Finally, collectivism is only an antecedent of sustainable purchase behaviour for generation Z.

This study examines the empowerment of low-power, vulnerable stakeholders of global, complex supply chains as one effective strategy to increase value co-creation and to moderate the vulnerabilities that threaten supply chain resilience. Previous scholars have indicated the necessity of investigating the concept of value co-creation further by including various stakeholder perspectives and suggesting systems of evaluation. This research thus focuses on low-power smallholder farmers within the coffee supply chain by qualitatively evaluating the effectiveness of value co-creation projects. The study also analyzes the extent of development and the nature of empowerment initiatives designed conjointly by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and coffee roasters that are addressed to farmers. The mixed qualitative methodology includes a literature review, interviews, focus groups, and content analysis of 20 value co-creation projects conducted in various developing and emerging coffee-producing countries. The research proposes a theoretical framework employed to conduct focus groups with Brazilian coffee farmers. This framework empirically demonstrates that these farmers are in the process of becoming business partners of the coffee supply chain thanks to various empowerment initiatives, common to most of the analyzed projects, that appear to moderate specific vulnerabilities of the coffee supply chain and therefore benefit supply chain resilience.