Building chains and directing flows: Strategies and tactics of mutual influence in stakeholder conflicts.
Date
2008
Authors
Zietsma, C.
Winn, M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sage Publications
Abstract
This article aims to deepen the understanding of the processes and specific actions aimed at influencing and shaping business practices through dynamic stakeholder relationships. An inductive, longitudinal study of all players involved in a stakeholder conflict identified four clusters of influence tactics that were used by both secondary stakeholders and their target firms: issue raising, issue suppressing, positioning, and solution seeking. The stakeholders studied built elaborate influence chains and worked to direct influence flows. The study contributes to stakeholder theory by offering a refined understanding of both bilateral and mutual-influence tactics, expanding the theory's focus beyond bilateral relationships, and highlighting the use of dependence relationships among multiple embedded organizations to build influence over a specific target, and more generally, an organizational field. These findings are discussed in light of work on social movement organizations and institutional theory.
Description
The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Business and Society, Vol 47/Issue 1, pp. 68-101, March, 2008 by SAGE Publications Ltd./SAGE Publications, Inc, All rights reserved. ©
Keywords
stakeholder dynamics, influence chains, influence flows, institutional theory, longitudinal study
Citation
Zietsma, C. & Winn, M. (2008). Building chains and directing flows: Strategies and tactics of mutual influence in stakeholder conflicts. Business and Society, 47(1): 68-101.