Abstract
Sustainability and sustainable business practices have influenced many policy and strategy decisions in organizations. Stakeholders, such as owners, employees, customers, and community members are bombarded with environmental and political claims, advertisements, and sustainability initiatives. This paper reexamines stakeholder theory when ethical situations are a concern, specifically with political ideology and stakeholders’ attitudes toward environmental spending. Using 2014 quantitative data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and then using qualitative interviews with 20 participants, this study questions the use of stakeholder theory in certain situations, especially when (un)ethical practices (e.g., spending on sustainability) come into question. Both logistic regression models show that political affiliation (i.e., ideology) has a significant negative association to spending on improving and protecting the environment. However, the findings of the qualitative study somewhat confirmed results of the quantitative study, yet brought up many ethical questions and issues. Introducing the qualitative results into this dilemma forces a business to question stakeholder theory, its stakeholders, and the ethics of always siding with its stakeholders. Finally, a few broad implications are included, including theoretical, organizational strategy, policy, and spending implications.
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Lunde, M.B. (2018). Ethical Concerns of Un(Sustainable) Stakeholders: A Reexamination of Stakeholder Theory in Sustainable Decision-Making. In: Rossi, P., Krey, N. (eds) Marketing Transformation: Marketing Practice in an Ever Changing World. AMSWMC 2017. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68750-6_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68750-6_26
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