Argues that stakeholder theory may be an appropriate model to describe firm behavior and replace the dominant paradigm, the economic model of the firm. However, current conceptualizations of stakeholder theory do not meet the requirements of scientific theory. Thus, looks at the historic roots of stakeholder``theory'', critiques its current form, and suggests steps that may be taken for stakeholder theory to satisfy the conceptual requirements of theory. Specifically suggests that contractual interests may underlie stakeholder relationships just as they do the agency relationship between managers and stockholders as prescribed by traditional economic theory.

Using ethical considerations in strategic decision making will result in the development of the most effective long term and short term strategies. Specifically, ethical criteria must be included as part of the strategic process in before‐profit decisions rather than after‐profit decisions in order to maximize corporate profits and improve strategy development and implementation. This paper presents a system of decision making to achieve this integration which uses an “interest assessment” that involves the analysis of the ethical, social and legal obligations of an organization.

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This paper develops the concept of managerial discretion. Discretion, defined as individual empowerment to act, has received increased attention in the management literature, particularly in the policy area. This research develops an instrument to measure discretion of individual managers. Vignettes are used to measure the willingness of managers to act in response to dilemmas that have organizational policy implications. The investigation of the reliability and validity of the developed measure, the Individual Discretion Questionnaire (IDQ), reveals that it identifies variability in managerial response and correlates significantly with two other established measures: locus of control and organizational ethical culture. The results suggest that this assessment tool may provide a means to identify how willing individual managers are to take preventive action in situations that present financial and sociopolitical risks to their organization.

BackgroundAbstracts and plain language summaries (PLS) are often the first, and sometimes the only, point of contact between readers and systematic reviews. It is important to identify how these summaries are used and to know the impact of different elements, including the authors’ conclusions. The trial aims to assess whether (a) the abstract or the PLS of a Cochrane Review is a better aid for midwifery students in assessing the evidence, (b) inclusion of authors’ conclusions helps them and (c) there is an interaction between the type of summary and the presence or absence of the conclusions.MethodsEight hundred thirteen midwifery students from nine universities in the UK and Ireland were recruited to this 2 × 2 factorial trial (abstract versus PLS, conclusions versus no conclusions). They were randomly allocated to one of four groups and asked to recall knowledge after reading one of four summary formats of two Cochrane Reviews, one with clear findings and one with uncertain findings. The primary outcome was the proportion of students who identified the appropriate statement to describe the main findings of the two reviews as assessed by an expert panel.ResultsThere was no statistically significant difference in correct response between the abstract and PLS groups in the clear finding example (abstract, 59.6 %; PLS, 64.2 %; risk difference 4.6 %; CI −0.2 to 11.3) or the uncertain finding example (42.7 %, 39.3 %, −3.4 %, −10.1 to 3.4). There was no significant difference between the conclusion and no conclusion groups in the example with clear findings (conclusions, 63.3 %; no conclusions, 60.5 %; 2.8 %; −3.9 to 9.5), but there was a significant difference in the example with uncertain findings (44.7 %; 37.3 %; 7.3 %; 0.6 to 14.1, p = 0.03). PLS without conclusions in the uncertain finding review had the lowest proportion of correct responses (32.5 %). Prior knowledge and belief predicted student response to the clear finding review, while years of midwifery education predicted response to the uncertain finding review.ConclusionsAbstracts with and without conclusions generated similar student responses. PLS with conclusions gave similar results to abstracts with and without conclusions. Removing the conclusions from a PLS with uncertain findings led to more problems with interpretation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0214-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.