Which of the following are those groups individuals and organizations that are directly affected by the practice of an organization and have a stake in its performance?

4.1 Introduction

Research in strategy and management, in general, has been increasingly focusing its attention on stakeholder theory following Freeman's (1984) seminal work, as more firms have become aware of the need for implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) aspects in their planning activities. Although there have been few empirical results showing that adopting CSR-related behavior leads to superior financial performance, it has been argued from the early stages that CSR can contribute substantially to the overall performance of a firm and the objectives of the firm's stakeholders, including society, see Burke and Logsdon (1996). These authors have also argued that superior CSR performance can lead to the creation of strategic, business-orientated benefits. Therefore organizations have to take into account stakeholder objectives in the planning process, and more specifically they should identify (1) the critical stakeholders who can contribute to achieving the mission and strategic objectives of the organization and (2) the specific strategies that can contribute to the objectives of these critical stakeholders.

The most important problem that arises is the identification of these critical stakeholders. There are many definitions of the “stakeholder” concept, and no universally accepted definition has been accepted until now, which leads to diverse foundations of “stakeholder theory” and “stakeholder management” (an in-depth discussion is provided by Donaldson and Preston, 1995 and applied to strategic port planning, in Dooms, 2010). The broadest definition of the concept is found in the work of Freeman (1984) where a “stakeholder is by definition any individual or group of individuals that can influence or are influenced by the achievement of the organisation's objectives.” Attempts to further specify “generic” categories of stakeholders are very difficult to achieve in practice for several reasons largely because of ambiguity on (1) the relative importance or equality of the different stakeholders (or the “value” and the “stake” of each stakeholder) and (2) the measurement of performance with regard to the objectives of different stakeholders. Furthermore, the objectives of the stakeholders are in most cases very diverse and even conflicting. Even inside a stakeholder group, there may be conflicts between subgroups with regard to the objectives to be pursued. This poses problems with regard to the legitimacy of the particular stakeholder group and also makes it difficult to measure the performance of the organization in which the group has a “stake” that has to be evaluated (Hill and Jones, 1992).

Explicit attention to stakeholder management applied to the port sector has appeared in quite limited quantities in academic research, as port activities and port development (mostly driven by port expansion programs) experience growing resistance, in particular by local community groups opposed to the (alleged) negative externalities of port activities (such as emissions, noise, odors, and so on). Notteboom and Winkelmans (2002) provide the first comprehensive attempt to define the port environment and have identified different categories of stakeholders: internal stakeholders (part of the port managing body organization), and three groups of external stakeholders, namely economic/contractual external stakeholders (e.g., port companies or their representative bodies), public policy stakeholders (e.g., government agencies), and community stakeholders. Furthermore, they presented a classification of stakeholders, on the basis of their involvement in the port planning process (strong– weak) and their impact on the process (strong–weak). This led to a classification scheme, based on the work of Eden and Ackermann (1998) with four categories of stakeholders, that is, (1) stakeholders who participate in “decision-making,” (2) stakeholders who “think along,” (3) stakeholders who want to be “informed,” and (4) stakeholders who take on a “steering” role in the port planning process. It was further argued that in order to achieve sustainable port development, the stakeholder approach will become increasingly important, given the rising complexity of the port environment.

The first elements of a stakeholder-based approach in port management can however be traced back to the articles by Frankel (1989) and Goss (1990a, 1990b, 1990c). Both authors concluded that the objectives of a port managing body clearly differ from those of conventional business firms, hence the need for a case-by-case approach, depending on the nature of the organization and its mission and objectives, as well as contextual factors (such as the degree of port competition, the country in which a port operates, and so on). Furthermore, strategy evaluation for shipping and ports would need to take into account economic objectives, market share, technological advances, service level, and environmental objectives (Frankel, 1989). One of the arguments for having port managing bodies is the control of externalities inside the port area (Goss, 1990b). It was also argued that these externalities could be positive, as when additional costs and investments are made to create parks with viewpoints, streets lined with trees, or new economic functions such as leisure and recreation. Here, well-designed ports could become more attractive locations and thus reduce externalities such as visual pollution (Goss, 1990b). Although stakeholder management theory was not explicitly mentioned in these articles, it was implicitly acknowledged that port managing bodies should pay attention to the externalities the cluster they manage causes, in particular toward the local environment (noise, emissions, visual pollution, congestion, and so on). Practical evidence, for example, litigation against port managing bodies and governments, confirms that local communities as well as “mobilizer” environmental groups (national movements and even international movements such as Greenpeace) show continued and growing opposition to port activity and port development. Therefore a new approach to port management was advocated, integrating economic as well as environmental objectives. For strategic port planning (in particular master planning), the academic literature has supported this point of view (Moglia and Sanguineri, 2003).

One common point in the previously mentioned research, excluding the fact that none of these articles showed links with stakeholder management literature, is the focus on the port strategic planning process, and the inclusion of environmental objectives in the strategic port planning process, both during the phase of port strategy definition, as well as the socioeconomic evaluation of strategy. Although this research identifies the challenges, there are no comprehensive answers in terms of methodologies and/or conceptual frameworks to be adopted to facilitate actual implementation of port planning processes, neither in terms of process issues nor evaluation. For process issues, Notteboom and Winkelmans (2002) provide the first answer with a classification based on the involvement and influence of individual stakeholders in the planning process. Earlier literature had focused on the difference between business and government objectives in port strategic planning, concluding that both have to be taken into account in port strategic planning (Coeck et al., 1997). With regard to methodologies for port planning, approaches toward integrating stakeholder objectives in the socioeconomic evaluation of a port vision and strategy have been developed and applied in practice (Dooms, 2010). This last stream of research explicitly provides linkages with the stakeholder management literature and provides advances to stakeholder theory based on case studies. Nevertheless, the focus of this research also remains exclusively in the area of stakeholder management applied to long-term strategic port planning, with no reference to stakeholder management in daily operational activities. In sum, most research considers rather “ad-hoc” approaches when it comes to stakeholder inclusion or provides conceptual insights.

For ports, the adoption of green management (e.g., through the implementation of Environmental Management Systems or landlord port pricing schemes with incentives for environment friendly port users) could imply that in order to be able to develop additional port capacity in the long term (through port expansion schemes, either via commercial policy or infrastructure development, or both), substantial resources should also be dedicated to stakeholder management in daily operational activities, as well as during the various construction phases of large development projects. In other words the introduction of stakeholders in the port planning process and strategy evaluation does not seem sufficient to guarantee the long-term sustainable growth and competitiveness of an individual port. Failure to achieve support for the development of new port infrastructure not only puts at risk the facilitation of economic growth (through cargo, trade, and conventional industries) through congestion due to capacity shortages but also increasingly hampers the development of port-related projects in the context of the green economy such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), on- and off-shore wind power generation, and circular economy projects, for which port areas are considered as interesting locations.

As a conclusion, the attention to stakeholder management applied in the context of the port industry, and for port managing bodies specifically, emerged in the early 2000s, following major conflicts observed around large-scale development projects, in particular in Western Europe. For example, the Maasvlakte 2 (Rotterdam), Deurganckdok (Antwerp), and Port 2000 (Le Havre) project all suffered from substantial delays due to stakeholder conflicts, in particular regarding environmental and governance-related issues. This has led to a development of mainly practice inspired scientific literature on the topic, in particular, based on port development and planning processes (strategy formulation and decision-making) as well as conflict identification, with relatively less attention to actual strategy implementation and day-to-day management when it comes to managing stakeholder interests. It can thus be argued that there already exists substantial research as well as methodologies on the integration of stakeholder management into long-term strategic port planning processes. With regard to stakeholder management in daily operational activities, as well as the implementation/construction of planned projects, we observe a lack of academic literature, whereas practice shows that port managing bodies are increasingly developing activities in the context of day-to-day stakeholder management.

The present chapter explores the practices that port managing bodies have been developing and implementing in more recent years and deducts a number of challenges for both the research and practitioner community. After a further overview of the academic literature on stakeholder management applied to ports in Section 4.2, and in particular the issue of stakeholder identification, we discuss a number of recently emerging practices and the associated challenges for stakeholder management in Section 4.3. Section 4.4 provides recommendations for both the research and practitioner community.

What Are the Responsibilities of Corporations in Society?

Writing in the 1960s, the economist Milton Friedman famously argued that “the only social responsibility a law-abiding business has is to maximise its profits for its shareholders.” He suggested that the role of corporate officials is to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, and that any notion of corporations having wider societal responsibilities was a “fundamentally subversive doctrine.” Key arguments advanced by Friedman, and other critics of corporate responsibility, include first, that corporate responsibility involves spending someone else's money. It is suggested that such actions are a tax on shareholders and customers, and may limit the ability of the former to use profits to achieve their own philanthropic objectives. Second, the dangers of “do-gooder” executives are highlighted, who it is argued may take their eye off the goal of profit-making and the achievement of competitive advantage and prioritize their own personal reputations and legacy instead, to the detriment of the company and its shareholders. A third key strand of criticism relates to a suggested lack of managerial competency in social arenas. Indeed, substantial work now exists highlighting dysfunctional engagements in the social arena by businesses. Fourth, it is suggested that firms engaging in social responsibility practices, acting as “corporate citizens,” are usurping the role of the state without the requisite accountability to citizens. Final avenues of critique include that where corporations do engage in social responsibility activity it often amounts to little more than “greenwash” (where companies misrepresent their environmental and social credentials). Meanwhile, the negative repercussions for reputation and relationships of botched social activities, or corporations being found hypocritical in the social arena, can also be severe.

In counterpoint to the above critical perspectives, the modern movement for corporate responsibility emerged in the 1950s, with the publishing of Howard Browen's book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman a notable highlight. However, concern with the role of business in society can be seen much further back, including Cicero's arguments on “controlled greed” in the 1st Century BCE, as well writing by non-Western counterparts like India's Kautilya in CE 4th Century. Medieval Christianity and Islam also publicly condemned certain business practices, e.g., usury, while in his 18th-Century work The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith identified the need for participants in the marketplace to act “honestly” and “justly.” Precursors of the modern social responsibility movement can also be seen in 19th-Century boycotts of foodstuffs produced with slave labor, as well as the philanthropy of entrepreneurs like Cadbury (Bournville) and Rowntree (Rowntree Foundation) in the United Kingdom, and Carnegie (Carnegie Trust) and Rockefeller (Rockefeller Foundation) in the United States.

The case for corporate responsibilities, and that business should be mindful of its role and impacts on society and the natural environment, has been made by many scholars, across multiple disciplines, drawing upon diverse theories and philosophies. For example, it has been widely argued that an implicit “social contract” exists between business and society, and that corporations are allowed to exist only through society's consent and cooperation. The existence of such a social contract is suggested to create moral obligations for business, albeit the precise terms of any such social contract remains debated. In another example, the primacy Milton Friedman gives to shareholder interests is often contrasted with relational, so-called stakeholder approaches to capitalism. The term stakeholder, and wider stakeholder theory, was popularized by Edward Freeman in the 1980s, who defined a stakeholder as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation's objective.” Shareholders are an important stakeholder group for business, but so are employees, customers, communities, suppliers, government, and even the environment. An organization's stakeholders vary depending on its mission and activities. In normative stakeholder theory it is argued that managers have a fiduciary relationship with the corporation's wider stakeholders, not just its shareholders. It is suggested that stakeholder groups other than shareholders may have a legitimate interest in the corporation, and that the interests of all stakeholders are of intrinsic value and need to be taken into consideration in business decision-making. Supporters of normative stakeholder theory have built arguments to justify this position drawing upon diverse perspectives including Kantian capitalism, theories of property and distributive justice, feminist ethics, fairness principles, Aristotelian approaches, etc.

Other proponents of corporate responsibilities beyond the creation of shareholder wealth have drawn upon notions of universal rights. In 2011, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, including the “Respect, Protect and Remedy” Framework. While not without their criticisms and limitations, these Guiding Principles do identify human rights obligations for transnational corporations, including in areas of workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental protection, corruption and bribery, civil and political rights, and also economic, social, and cultural rights. The UN Global Compact represents a further more practical attempt to delineate the human rights responsibilities of corporations. The UN Global Compact outlines ten principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. It was announced by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1999 in an address to the World Economic Forum, and implementation began in 2000. There are now more than 12,000 company and nonbusiness participants. In a similar vein to these arguments based on universal rights, proponents of corporate responsibility have also drawn upon notions of “sustainable development,” and most recently the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which require a corporate contribution.

Additional perspectives deployed by those arguing for the extended responsibilities of corporations include previously discussed notions of corporate citizenship. In an important paper in the corporate responsibility field, Archie Carroll also introduced his Pyramid of CSR, which identifies that corporations have responsibilities across four domains: economic responsibilities—to be profitable; legal responsibilities—to obey the law; ethical responsibilities—to act ethically; and philanthropic responsibilities—to be a good corporate citizen.

Finally, there also exist more instrumental perspectives on the topic of corporate responsibilities. Such perspectives argue that corporations, and wider businesses, should act responsibly because there is a “business case” for doing so. This suggested “business case” for corporate responsibility is multifaceted and varies according to industry, by geography, and in relation to different social responsibility issues. Some examples of business case arguments will now be elaborated. First, it is argued that if companies voluntarily engage with social responsibility issues that this can help them to preempt, avoid, or shape future regulation, and then mitigate future costs of compliance. The business case for corporate action in the environmental arena has perhaps been made most strongly, and is the most widely accepted by business leaders. For instance, it is suggested that through reducing their energy consumption companies can save money while lowering their carbon emissions, with this argument also extending to wider resource use. Similar eco-efficiency arguments can also be made around reducing packaging. Another widely suggested business case argument is that being socially responsible reduces reputational and wider risk for companies. It can also make their products and services more desirable to consumers, particularly those giving weight to ethical criteria in their purchasing decisions. Consumers are a key stakeholder group for companies, but building strong positive relationships with other stakeholders is also important and it is suggested can be a source of competitive advantage. Companies can do this through socially responsible actions. Instrumental stakeholder theory, in contrast to normative stakeholder theory, stresses the “win-win” benefits of positive stakeholder relations.

Advocates of the business case for corporate responsibility also highlight the business opportunities for corporations of engaging with some social and environmental responsibility issues. For instance, it is suggested that a “fortune” awaits those firms that can develop new needed goods and services for “Base of the Pyramid” (BoP) markets. The BoP is the estimated 4.5 billion people globally living on less than US $8 per day. It has also been proposed that if corporations are “strategic” in their philanthropy that this can benefit them and society, and indeed that it is possible for them to create “Shared Value” by properly considering social and environmental issues in their decision-making, value chain activities, and strategies. Finally, to illustrate the industry specific nature of the business case, it is often argued that corporate responsibility activity can enable mining companies to gain and retain their normative social “license to operate” in host communities.

The existence of such a “business case” for corporate responsibility has been heavily researched, with studies generally reporting its existence, albeit contingent on factors like the industry, context, and the nature of the social responsibility issue. (Over)emphasis on the “business case” has also been critiqued and suggested to limit corporate responsibility agendas and practices, e.g., what about those social responsibility issues where a business case cannot be made, e.g., corporate tax avoidance, but where companies may nevertheless have moral/ethical obligations. It has also been argued that where corporate responsibility practice relies upon the existence of a business case then essentially it is just good business, and so ethical/moral appeals to corporate responsibility are irrelevant.

4 Responsible cruise tourism

With the rise of an increasing trend in scrutiny and criticism of industry practitioners and researchers on the negative impacts of cruise tourism activities, the notion of responsible cruise tourism has become a hot issue of tourism research and practice. Initially, responsible cruise tourism concentrated on participants like tourists and travel agents understand a wide range of tourist interactions can minimize negative effects of environmental and social impacts and maximize the local communities benefit (Frey and George, 2010). Now, we need to consider stakeholder theory to extend it to cruise tourism activities in different regions, different areas, different levels, and different linkages. Also, we need to create a framework of action including cruise liners, cruise ports, travel agencies, onshore service providers, organizations (i.e., government bodies, cruise associations, nonprofit organizations, and industry alliances), and individuals (i.e., local residents, crews, and cruisers). As shown in Fig. 1, all stakeholders require improved involvement through drafting a master plan, formulating activities, and providing clear guidelines so as to make cruise tourism into a sustainable and responsible industry.

Responsible cruise tourism systems include various stakeholders and effective implementation of responsible cruise tourism is largely determined by the attitudes and behaviors of government departments, organizations, enterprises, and associations toward the idea of cruise tourism. Firstly, government departments, industrial organizations, and industry associations are responsible for drafting and supervising the laws, policies, and industry standards to improve the tourists travel experience and the well-being of residents (Klein, 2009). How to align between the international standard and local government practice is of significant importance. Secondly, industry associations and industry organizations play a leading role in maintaining the industry standards, and provide professional advice on responsible travel; for example (1) protecting the environment, including animals, plants, and landscapes; (2) minimizing pollution consisting of noise, waste disposal, and congestion (Goodwin and Francis, 2003). In addition, cruise liners, travel agencies, cruise ports, industry associations, and other organizations must jointly create a responsible cruise culture to increase the cruise visitors’ sense of responsibility for the natural environment, marine ecology, and community culture through publicity and education.

Defining the Term Stakeholder

The term stakeholder has its origins in management theory and is widely used in corporate analysis. A common definition of stakeholder refers to any group or individual who can affect or be affected by an organisation’s objectives, policies, and subsequent actions. In essence, a stakeholder has come to mean anyone who has a stake in an organisation, through either being affected by or being able to affect that organisation. The primary usage of the term has been managerial in nature, as it has been applied as a means to allow managers to identify and account for a variety of interests and needs staff, clients, or investors as they can influence particular business practices. Accounting for a stakeholder’s interests ensures that the needs and perspectives of different individuals or groups are highlighted as they may have an impact on the organisations, such that without their support or explicit support an organisation will cease to exist. While a stakeholder can be comprised of groups and individuals that management needs to respond, determining who they are is highly contested in the management literature.

‘Stakeholder theory’ was developed as a means to provide definitional parameters that could help determine who the stakeholders are. The focus of the theory is to explain the importance of regarding for the interests and needs that are more than financial. According to this theory, a core issue associated with recognising a stakeholder is related to the values and ethics that a business has. It is believed that they have a moral obligation to account for the needs of different individuals and groups that extend beyond their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

While many perceive clear differences between a shareholder and a stakeholder, stakeholder theory states that a shareholder is a special class of stakeholder, where the former has a financial stake in the success of the business, and the latter can potentially have interests beyond financial; these interests can potentially impact on the success or failure of a business. Efforts to distinguish between a shareholder and a stakeholder, referred to as the ‘separation thesis’, are misguided as this dichotomy creates an unnecessary tension that more often results in giving prominence to those that have a financial interest in a business rather than the impact that a business can have on broader society. Often times, considering the needs of stakeholders is often a secondary concern where shareholders are given a more prominent voice in the decision made by an organisation or business. Accordingly, a stakeholder’s role is far more ambiguous, as they often lack defined rights and in many cases their involvement is largely symbolic.

The common definition of stakeholder is strenuously contested in the research literature and in practice. A primary concern of opponents to giving any sort of primacy to stakeholder concept is that a person who deems herself to have a stake in an organisation can be seen as being a stakeholder. While some see the broader definition as desirable as it allows one to capture as many perspectives and voices as possible, others believe that a broad scope can cast too wide a net, thereby making it difficult to appreciate the importance of accounting for different needs and interests that contribute to a business or to a corporation. In order to address this concern, it has become common practice to accept that not all stakeholders are equal, where some are entitled to different treatment or outcomes depending on their influence and power.

Some authors have recognised the different stakes that individuals or groups may have by parsing the concept into primary and secondary groupings. A primary stakeholder is one without whose continuing participation the corporation cannot survive, whereas a secondary stakeholder has an important role, but is not seen as being integral to the survival of an organisation. Others have built on this refinement by suggesting that stakeholders hold a relative importance. Their level of importance can actually change should a change within an organisation occur, which can potentially give one group the status of primary stakeholder and another lesser status at different stages of an organisation’s lifecycle.

Involving stakeholders in a housing context can appear quite different than what is normally found in businesses and corporations. However, a common purpose is the importance of identifying and involving individuals and groups in the different functions and tasks associated with planning a development as well as managing a property. A stakeholder can inform specific tasks and outcomes of a successful initiative, in the case of a community setting there is the expectation that different perspectives and voices add greater value, as the members are more often heterogeneous. However, as indicated above, a key challenge remains in recognising the relative importance as well as identifying who they are, which is the purpose of conducting a stakeholder analysis.

Using Theories in Health Promotion: Determinants

At different phases in the planning process different theories will be most relevant (Glanz et al., 2008; Simons-Morton et al., 2012). The first phases rely on epidemiological theories; the later phases, when the intervention is developed, rely on theories from the behavioral sciences, especially social psychology. In this and the next two paragraphs we will describe theories that can be applied in the three phases: determinants, intervention, and implementation. In the phase of looking at determinants we try to understand why people behave as they do. We distinguish ecological, social cognitive, and automatic determinants of behavior.

2.2 Identifying the Players: Who Really Counts?

Consistent with the evidence just reviewed, individuals often fail to consider all the relevant players in a given situation. Consider the following anecdote for instance.

Several years ago, I attended a conference in Los Angeles in honor of a distinguished scholar. During dinner, the guest of honor (let's call him “Guest”) called the waiter and asked him: “What dish do you recommend I get?” The waiter responded with a recommendation that Guest endorsed immediately. When the waiter left, Guest turned to me and said he always asks waiters this question to ensure he gets the best dish available. I asked how he knew that the waiter indeed recommended the best dish available. Puzzled by my query, Guest explained: “I did not ask him what he would order; I asked him what I should order.” I then asked Guest whether he considered the possibility that waiters may recommend a dish that the restaurant owner (or the chef, or anyone else they depend on and defer to) told them to promote that evening. Guest replied by saying I was spending too much time with economists.

To me, this anecdote raises intriguing questions about the identification and salience of different players in strategic interactions. Was the restaurant owner a relevant player in the interaction between Guest and the waiter? What about all the other guests that evening who overheard the waiter's recommendation, and whose food orders could have been influenced by it? More generally, how do individuals determine who the important players in a given strategic interaction are?

Laboratory experiments using strategic games typically define who the players are to research participants. In addition, participation is mostly fixed in the sense that players cannot walk away from the game or invite others to make decisions in the game. In real-world strategic interactions, however, decision makers have to identify who matters and to what extent. This identification process is complicated by the epistemological challenges noted earlier. Participation in many real-world strategic interactions is fluid: Decision makers come and go depending on the availability of time and their level of interest in the problem (Cohen et al., 1972). In addition, inferring player relevance from player participation is problematic because some participation decisions are not willful (eg, scheduling constraints, a delayed flight, or poor mobile phone reception might prevent an important player from participating in a decision-making process).

The need to identify who matters in strategic decision-making situations is the main focus of stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984; Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997). To be effective in their goal pursuits, organizations must understand the interdependencies among shareholders, employees of the firm, customers, suppliers, competitors, collaborators, government regulators, special interest groups, politicians, the media, legal institutions, and players in other industries and contexts (eg, universities) who generate information and technologies that can influence the firm's processes and outcomes (Cummings & Doh, 2000). In addition to identifying current players, effective strategic thinking requires identifying potential players, ie, parties who may choose to intervene and influence the situation (Halevy & Halali, 2015). Understanding the abilities of different players and the value they bring to the table (eg, whether they control sufficient resources to transform a losing coalition into a winning coalition) is essential for effective coalition bargaining (Murnighan, 1978).

Consistent with common definitions of outcome interdependence (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978; Reis, 2008), broad definitions of stakeholders treat any party “who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization's objectives” as a potential stakeholder (Freeman, 1984, p. 46). However, time pressure, limited resources, and cognitive constraints require decision makers to prioritize whom they can attend to more vs less. Research on the identification and saliency of stakeholders (ie, players) considers three sources of influence on decision makers’ attention allocation across different stakeholders: Attributes of the perceiver, attributes of the target, and attributes of the situation.

With respect to attributes of the perceiver, recent research investigated the role that decision makers’ personal value priorities (ie, the relative importance individuals place on different motivational goals as guiding principles in their lives) play in shaping their tendency to prioritize different stakeholders (Adams, Licht, & Sagiv, 2011). The researchers adapted seminal court cases involving conflicts between shareholders and other stakeholders (consumers, employees, creditors, and the community) into vignettes, which they administered to a sample of 628 CEOs, vice-CEOs, and directors of publicly traded firms in Sweden, together with a measure of personal value priorities.

The tendency to prioritize shareholders over other stakeholders correlated positively with self-enhancement values (valuing power and achievement) and negatively with self-transcendence values (valuing universalism and benevolence). Thus, prioritizing wealth, control, and success contributed to a preference for shareholders over stakeholders, whereas prioritizing broader concern for others and fairness contributed to a preference for stakeholders over shareholders. In addition, the tendency to prioritize shareholders over other stakeholders correlated positively with openness to change values (valuing self-direction and stimulation) and negatively with conservation values (valuing conformity and tradition). Thus, entrepreneurial values contributed to preferences that were aligned with shareholders’ financial interests, whereas valuing stability and continuity contributed to preferences that met other stakeholders’ (eg, employees’) expectations and needs. These findings highlight how personal characteristics of decision makers can shape who they see as the important players in high-stakes strategic interactions.

With respect to attributes of the target, research shows that CEOs of US companies pay more attention to powerful stakeholders (those with greater ability to influence the company's economic interests), as well as to stakeholders whose claims are seen as legitimate (ie, appropriate; Agle, Mitchell, & Sonnenfeld, 1999). With respect to attributes of the situation, the same research found that stakeholders received more attention when their claims or demands were conveyed with a sense of urgency (Agle et al., 1999). These findings suggest that might considerations (a player's power), moral considerations (the legitimacy of a player's claim), and communicative cues (a player's ability to signal urgency) all influence how decision makers allocate their attention over sets of potentially relevant players in the environment.

4.3 Stakeholder classification in disaster risk management

Stakeholder theory amalgamates power, legitimacy and urgency attributes to propose dynamism in the systematic identification of stakeholders [77]. By utilizing the stakeholder theory, we can identify pivotal stakeholders in different phases of disaster risk management; consequently, this theory helps us prioritize stakeholders by considering power, legitimacy and urgency attributes. Mitchell et al. [66] classified and defined stakeholders into seven main groups as shown in Table 2. It also shows how these seven stakeholder groups possibly are mapped or aligned with other stakeholder classifications (i.e. private/public sector, policy/practitioner, informal /formal, community groups/individuals).

Stakeholders' identification, classification and participation most probably help planners to benefit from their’ knowledge, policies and experience while their divergent statements would most likely result in reducing disaster risk and managing disaster effectively. Disaster risk managers can identify and classify stakeholders based on their attributes to assign budget and resources appropriately to manage disaster risks proactively. However, no research has been found that investigated the implications of these classifications in disaster risk management and how this classification could help policy makers and managers in disaster risk management to identify key stakeholders and design suitable types of information and communication for them depending on what stakeholder classification they fall within.

4.17 Stakeholder theory

Stakeholder theory proposes that companies produce externalities that affect several parties, both internal and external to the firm. A stakeholder is defined as any group or individual who affects or is affected by organization's actions (Freeman, 1984). For instance, stakeholders can be suppliers, partners or customers, as well as governmental entities.

In order to attend to stakeholders’ expectations and concerns, companies must identify all those parties that are affected by their decisions. Usually, stakeholders exert pressure on companies to reduce negative impacts and increase positive ones (Sarkis et al., 2011). However, different stakeholder groups may perceive such impacts differently. For this reason, the more information an organization can gather about its stakeholders and their requirements, the better the organization can meet their expectations and avoid unintended negative impacts (Wilburn & Wilburn, 2016).

In this context, BDA can represent a solution for companies to better satisfy stakeholders' expectations, by analyzing and predicting the impact of decisions on stakeholder groups. Wilburn and Wilburn (2016) argue that big data allows organizations to understand the possibilities and probabilities of a decision to positively or negatively affect their stakeholders, specifically for decisions related to corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives. It is especially important for companies working in global communities with different cultures, norms, and needs (Wilburn & Wilburn, 2016).

Another possible relation to big data comes from the pressures that stakeholders can exert on companies. As stated by Akhtar et al. (2018) and Sarkis et al. (2011), stakeholders may be responsible for pressuring companies to adopt sustainable practices. Following this idea, companies may be directly or indirectly pressured by their stakeholders– partners or otherwise – to apply big data in achieving competitive advantage, or simply parity with competitors.

7 Conclusion

In this study, using the discursive-institutional approach and stakeholder theory, we argued that overlap of geographical networks and dynamics of global institutional histories could result in particular trends and levels of convergence and dissonance in SFM standardization. Comparing the trends in numbers and types of changes among the three international protocols of ITTO, MP, and FE with those among the forest certification schemes of FSC and SFI in two periods, from 1990 to 2005 and from 2005 to 2019, our results were situated within the historical dynamics between tropical and temperate as well as boreal institutions. In terms of the trends of global forest governance, a) prominence of changes in ecological types of C&Is may be associated with the overall movement from industry and government to the inclusion of civil society and NGOs in the policy arena from 1990 to 2015, and b) the importance of considering socio-economic institutional elements towards trends and developments in all the five standards is observed.

Our analysis is restricted to the seven concept frames of C&Is and does not refer to any further substantive or procedural convergence and dissonance in the five standards. Only detailed and comparative qualitative analyses in the future can help to assess that. Furthermore, our study is limited in the fact that direct connection with changes in specific stakeholder networks was out of the purview of this paper; nevertheless, we argue that changes in particular types of C&I framing may represent the influence of a particular type of stakeholder policy networks. Future research can also find such interconnections in a more explicit and quantitative way through social network analyses (Paletto et al., 2015). The issue of geographical scale is also at the heart of C&I convergences. Future research should attempt to empirically disentangle the effects of geography-driven variables, including socio-economic characteristics and ecological priorities of participating stakeholders, to understand the dynamics of standardization that have taken place in these SFM systems.

We recognize that the observed convergences and dissonance in SFM standardization might not indicate any practices that might be good or bad, only the raw structural changes in the C&Is. Conducting analyses of on the ground impact evaluation is outside the scope of this paper, but future research connecting on the ground impacts with standard convergence and dissonance can show whether the fragmented international forest regime is having a positive or negative impact and where the impact is taking place. Furthermore, it will be informative to categorize and track the convergence and dissonance by concept frames more detailed than the ones used in this study. Categorizing in such a generic way will help future researchers smoothen out the default goal-driven differences between protocols and certification standards, consequently allowing higher focus on actual substantive changes. Furthermore, our future research can build on this study by empirically identifying interconnections between changing legitimacy dynamics as used by Cashore et al. (2003) and standard developments that take place in global SFM institutions.

2.2.5 Performance measurement systems

In the generic management literature, PMS studies have adopted various perspectives, ranging from stakeholder theory (Atkinson, 1998) to behavioural theory (Lipe & Salterio, 2000); institutional theory (Modell, 2003) and resource-based view theory (Fink, Marr, Siebe, & Kuhle, 2005). Also, contingency theory reiterates the need that PMS are not invariant (Agostino & Arnaboldi, 2012) and factors such as environment, sise, technology, culture and strategy do matter. Unfortunately, the literature has failed to provide concrete insights into the determinants of performance and their relative importance (Assaf & Josiassen, 2012). Nevertheless, a common view is that the tourism performance construct is now multidimensional (Sainaghi et al., 2013), and the interaction of strategy and tourism performance was predominantly made explicit by the balanced scorecard (Vila et al., 2010). Prior studies have sought to analyse the impact of various organisational and contextual variables on PMS such as CSR (De Grosbois, 2012; Fu, Ye, & Law, 2014; Levy & Park, 2011; Park & Levy, 2014; Punitha & Rasdi, 2013).