CEO Stakeholder Attitudes and Corporate Social Activity in the Fortune 500

Abstract

Various corporate social activities were regressed on self-report measures of stakeholder-orientations from 220 CEOs from large Fortune 500 industrial and service firms. Overall, the relationship between who CEOs say is important and corporate activities toward those stakeholders is much weaker than anticipated. Of the expected relationships, only corporate philanthropy was positively related to CEO community orientation. The few other significant findings were less straightforward. Return on equity (ROE) of the company was related to the CEO's customer orientation rather than the CEO's stockholder orientation, and liberal HRM programs were positively associated with a CEO's stockholder orientation rather than employee orientation.

Information on Corporate Social Responsibility and SME´s Environmental Responsiveness: A Regional Study

“…In this new framework for action the organization aims to meet the demands of their key stakeholders (Freeman and Miles, 2002;Kaler, 2004). The academic literature shows that CSR meets both, external and internal agents: clients (Brown and Dacin, 1997;Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001;Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006) and shareholders (Clarkson, 1995;Griffin and Mahon, 1997;Orlitzky et al, 2003), as well as managers (Lerner and Fryxell, 1994;Mahoney and Thorne, 2005) or employees (Turban and Greening, 1997;Albinger and Freeman, 2000).…”

The Stakeholder Model: The Influence of the Ownership and Governance Structures

“…Freeman's definition states that stakeholders are: ''…any group or individual, who can affect or is affected by the achievement of organisation's objectives.'' Later on Lerner and Fryxell (1994) distinguish between five major stakeholders: shareholders, employees, customers, government and community. Clarkson (1995) defines stakeholders as ''…persons or groups that have, or claim ownership, rights, or interests in a corporation and its activities, past, present, or future.''…”

Missing Elements in Strategic Policy Making

“…Yet, according to one opinion survey of CEOS, their concern with stakeholder expectations is moderated by their firm's economic performance (Dooley and Lerner, 1994). Another study finds only a weak relationship between what CEOS say is important about their stakeholders, and their companies' deeds regarding these interests (Lerner and Fryxell, 1994).…”