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Stakeholder theorists contend that firms can boost their value creation by enfranchising key stakeholders, implicitly assuming that stakeholders have agency, i.e., they can recognize and reciprocate the value being shared with them. In this paper, we interrogate that assumption, arguing that stakeholders are often heedless, powerless, or absent, and laying out the conditions under which firms' attempts to enfranchise stakeholders may go unrewarded—conditions we collectively define as missing agent problems. Profit-maximizing firms will avoid enfranchising stakeholders who lack agency, and firms that do enfranchise such stakeholders are likely to see their profits decline. Our study thus highlights an important but largely unexamined boundary condition of stakeholder theory, while offering a fresh perspective on the social impact of stakeholder management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium highlights the importance of adopting abductive reasoning and a question-driven approach in research, especially when dealing with phenomena that challenge or extend beyond existing theories, or in cases where data and methodologies are insufficient. It will serve as a platform for scholars experienced in these methodologies to share insights and experiences, with a focus on applying these approaches in a theoretically robust and methodologically sound manner. Discussions will cover the motivations behind adopting a question-driven approach, the unique challenges and benefits of diverging from traditional hypothesis testing, and effective strategies for data interpretation and navigating the journal review process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, firms, alongside policymakers and politicians, have competed to influence the language and narratives of various policies. Although the various strategies firms use to engage in this process have been examined across fields, when such strategies are most beneficial for firms and what implications these strategies have for broader societal outcomes remain a topic of debate. Moreover, advances in machine learning methodologies have also ignited new opportunities for research to trace the impact of businesses' strategic communication of ideas and narratives on improving their competitive positioning. In this panel symposium, we've gathered a panel of respected scholars from diverse disciplines who study and represent diverse actors in policy discourse. Our goal is to bridge these views for a comprehensive examination of how effective these strategies are and what they mean for society, helping to shape more effective and prudent ways for companies to engage in policy discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the function of public vs. private institutions and studies conditions that influence their effectiveness. We use the population of commercial banks in Manhattan from 1840 to 1980 and investigate the impact of banks' participation in the New York Clearing House Association, an industry-level cooperative arrangement, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the governmental regulatory institution, on their failure rates. We find that banks' participation in the private institution reduced their failure rates more than did participation in the public institution. The effectiveness of the private institution hinges on its nature as a local organization that includes a relatively small number of homogeneous and densely-connected banks. Localism enables strong monitoring and enforcement mechanisms that are critical to solve the problem of collective action. In contrast, the governmental regulation enlarges the geographical scope of participation, adopts standardized procedures, and introduces regulatory agencies, which in fact loosen monitoring and create an opportunity for banks to be more risk-taking. But the upside of the public institution is its 'public' nature, and we find banks that were excluded from the private institutions were better off under the regime of government regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares two types of regulatory institutions—the industry cooperation and government regulation—and examines the conditions under which the industry cooperation overcomes the problem of collective action and enacts effective monitoring and enforcement on organizations. We use the history of the New York Clearing House Association, a private industry cooperation among commercial banks in Manhattan, to illuminate the collective action problem. We analyze bank failure rates and risk orientation and show that the NYCHA successfully organized private cooperative arrangements that enhanced its member banks' survival chances, and reduced risky behaviors. We argue the strength of the NYCHA rests on its nature of localism, due to the institutional constraints of bank branching. We also find that the surviving benefit of the NYCHA on its member banks diminished after the Federal Reserve was founded, suggesting that the substitution of government regulation on the private cooperation can bring about unexpected organizational outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the distributional consequences of corporate philanthropy. We argue that the strategic nature of corporate philanthropy means that corporate donations will go disproportionately to the more economically influential sections of society who constitute key stakeholders for for-profit firms. Private provision to these influential communities will tend to crowd out government transfers however, with this reduction in government aid affecting even those communities that do not directly benefit from corporate philanthropy. As a result, corporate philanthropy will have a socio-politically polarizing effect. We test and find support for our arguments by examining corporate foundation giving in the US from 2003 to 2011. In particular, we show that increasing differences in corporate donations are associated with increasing political differences, as reflected in US presidential elections from 2004 to 2012. Our study thus suggests that corporate philanthropy may act as a regressive and polarizing force, and highlights the need to think more carefully about who corporate philanthropy benefits and how the gains from it are distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) acts as a remedy for moral hazard in the workplace. To obtain exogenous variation in employees' propensity to engage in moral hazard, we exploit a natural experiment provided by large increases in state-level unemployment insurance (UI) benefits between 1992 and 2012 in the U.S. Higher UI benefits render the threat of termination less effective and hence increase employees' incentives to shirk. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that companies react to increases in UI benefits by increasing their engagement in employee-related CSR. This finding supports the view that CSR is a valuable resource that allows companies to motivate their employees against engaging in moral hazard. We further provide evidence that the increase in CSR is larger for companies operating in industries that are more labor intensive, more competitive, and subject to higher levels of stakeholder dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]