Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2010

Publication Title

California Management Review

Volume

53

Issue Number

1

First Page

90

Last Page

113

DOI

10.1525/cmr.2010.53.1.90

Disciplines

Business Administration, Management, and Operations

Abstract

How do managers respond when confronted with the demands of activist stakeholders over whom they exercise no direct control? What strategies do managers adopt, and why? Which of these are most effective—and under what conditions? Increasingly, businesses today face difficult challenges in response to changing public expectations and newly emergent techniques of stakeholder influence. New communications technologies enable activists concerned about business behavior to mobilize supporters around the world in real time. Many firms conduct their work on a global stage, where damage to reputation in one location can quickly reverberate around the world. This article develops a typology of managerial strategies to respond to complex disputes with activist stakeholders. It argues that management strategies fall into four categories: wage a fight, withdraw, wait, or work it out. Which strategy is chosen is likely to vary according to: the firm's dependence on stakeholders for critical resources, the firm's power in the particular situation, and the urgency of the contested issue. Managers' effectiveness is, in large part, a function of their ability to assess these three conditions correctly.

Comments

Published as "Managing Disputes with Nonmarket Stakeholders: Wage a Fight, Wait, Withdraw, or Work It Out?" California Management Review 53.1 (2010): 90-113." © 2010 by University of California Press. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by [the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the Sponsoring Society] for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on [JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal)] or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com.

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