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This symposium seeks to understand the impacts of employee ownership (EO) on firms' effective engagements with diverse stakeholders. Specifically, the main purpose of this symposium is to respond a question: With regard to corporate engagements in stakeholder relations, what if workers or employees become owners of companies? In particular, how do employee-owners or employee-owned companies approach to stakeholder management? Previous research presents that EO significantly influences various dimensions of firm performance and outcomes. With regard to corporate stakeholder engagements, however, as this year's AOM theme points out, management scholarship has paid "far less attention to workers as subjects." Also, management scholarship insufficiently studies relevant phenomena of workers-as- owners, i.e., EO or employee-owned companies, one of the important ownership categories. The research presented and ideas discussed in this symposium can help management scholars reconsider and rebalance the roles of workers as owners of their own workplaces in stakeholder management. EO is considered a plausible remedy to pervasive equity problems and diversity/inclusiveness issues in our socio-economic system. As such, this symposium squarely meets this year's theme: Putting the Worker Front and Center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across disciplines, the majority of publications in top journals are authored by males in Western high-income countries. This panel symposium aims to increase the range of voices heard as authors on sustainability topics and represent concerns too often marginalized or excluded from management journals. Geographic diversity is particularly important for research on organizations and the natural environment, as regions worldwide have different perspectives on sustainable development. To seek and recognize the contributions of researchers working in and on under-represented contexts, a panel of authors from diverse geographic locations outside North America and Europe will share their experiences in publishing in sustainability management journals, and the challenges they had to overcome in their work to break through barriers. An Editor will share recommendations on how to get research from different parts of the world published in management journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neglected so far from management studies on workplace safety is the role of executives (e.g., CEOs and TMTs), boards, and regulators. CEOs and executives are likely to influence safety priorities throughout their companies, albeit indirectly, via other groups of organizational actors (Tucker et al., 2016), for example, depending on the extent to which their speeches focus on efficiency and cost control (Amernic et al., 2013), or on how powerful they are relative to other executives on the board (Haga et al., 2021). Boards of directors, who increasingly agree that workplace safety falls under their responsibility (Ebbevi et al., 2021), may influence product safety and culture through decisions such as the appointment of a named health and safety director (Wright et al., 2006), the monitoring of safety key performance indicators (KPIs), and the inclusion of such KPIs in CEOs compensation contracts (Bradley et al., 2021) as well as by monitoring and advice giving (Ebbevi et al., 2021). As the research on political CSR shows, companies also interact with, influence, and sometimes substitute for government responsibilities (Matten et al., 2020; Ozcan et al., 2018), raising the strategic question of how regulation and regulators affect firms' workplace safety initiatives and results -- all of which trickle down from the top to other organizational layers (Lornudd et al., 2021). By showcasing studies that investigate the role of CEOs, boards, and regulators on workplace safety, our symposium hopes to stimulate additional strategy research (particularly on the role of upper echelons) on workplace safety -- and on social responsibility along the supply chain more broadly. With almost two million people dying around the globe each year from exposure to workplace risk factors (WHO/ILO Report, 2021), we aim to show how C-suite executives, boards of directors, and regulators may play a more central role in leading their corporations to create safer workplaces for workers and society -- addressing the central theme of the Academy of Management's 2022 conference. To embrace diversity of thoughts, we invited a highly accomplished group of scholars from Europe and the US across multiple disciplines, including strategic decision making, corporate social responsibility, operations and supply chain management, and organizational behavior. This diversity allows us to examine in-depth how we could create a safer working environment based on experiences from multiple countries and including theoretical lenses. * CEOs, Corporate Culture, and Workplace Safety * Presenter: Jesper Haga; Hanken School of Economics * Presenter: Fredrik Huhtamäki; Umeå School of Business and Economics, Umeå U. * Presenter: Dennis Sundvik; Hanken School of Economics * Presenter: Timmy Thor; Hanken School of Economics * Workplace Safety After Product Recalls: A Learning Advantage to Board Diversity * Presenter: Yoon S. Son; U. of Notre Dame * Presenter: Corinne A. Post; Villanova U. * Presenter: Katie S. Wowak; U. of Notre Dame * Presenter: Veronica Haydee Villena; W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State U. * Rob Peter to Pay Paul? The Role of Board Reforms in Workplace Safety * Presenter: Dennis Wajda; U. of Miami * Presenter: Wei Shi; U. of Miami * Do Regulatory Inspections Make Operational Workers Safer? * Presenter: Mary Parkinson; U. College Dublin * Presenter: Mark Pagell; U. College Dublin * Presenter: Anthony Veltri; -* Presenter: John Gray; Ohio State U. * Presenter: Frank Wiengarten; ESADE Business School [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed massive flaws in human health systems worldwide. Communities with higher health deficiencies suffered even more drastic effects when COVID-19 interacted with pre-existing diseases--making COVID a more lethal virus. Considering that business can only thrive if their stakeholders enjoy good health and well-being, the critical role of business in improving health spans from occupational health and public health policy and regulations to the health of external stakeholders such as consumers and the surrounding communities. Despite the intrinsic connection between business and human health, business scholars have mainly paid attention to internal stakeholders, such as employees, and public health policy and regulations as they directly affect business, while overlooking the impact of business on external stakeholder health. This symposium intends to open a place for discussion of the role of business in tackling human health challenges and the impact of business on the health of external stakeholders such as consumers and communities. This symposium will also be a springboard to propose a research agenda for business and management scholars interested in health and the advancement in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for not only SDG 3 on Good Health and Well-being but also related SDGs such as SDG 2 on Zero Hunger and SDG 13 on Climate Action. * Coproducing Social Impact Through a Community-Empowered Human Resource Model * Presenter: Andrea Maria Prado; INCAE Business School * Presenter: Andy Pearson; INCAE Business School * Presenter: Silvia Dorado; U. of Massachusetts, Boston * Presenter: Ying Chen; U. of Rhode Island * Health-Washing in Business * Presenter: Remy Balarezo; U. de Piura * Presenter: Ivan Montiel; City U. of New York, Baruch College * Evaluating the Impacts of Corporate Health Initiatives * Presenter: Bryan W. Husted; Tecnologico de Monterrey * Presenter: Irene Henriques; York U. * Presenter: Lilia Raquel Rojas-Cruz; EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain technology has the potential to enable new forms of economic and social organization that create a new context for stakeholder management. Rules and laws set in code, alongside automated smart contracts, allow for networks of organizations to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate, without the need for trust between entities. This can allow diverse networks of stakeholders to organize using blockchain technology, forming a blockchain meta-organization comprised of multiple legally autonomous participants and other social and economic entities. While there are many benefits to blockchain, this new organizational form creates opportunities and challenges for traditional stakeholder management. We propose a different stakeholder approach, launching off of an issue-based conceptualization of stakeholder management, to show how blockchain meta-organizations can bring multiple stakeholders together for value creation, as well as to address industry-level and societal level wicked problems, including sustainability issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managerial discretion, understood as managers' latitude of strategic actions and latitude of opportunistic objectives, is an oft-used construct in strategy research linking executive decision making to firm actions. However, little research has been done examining how managerial discretion translates into a company's ability to engage with stakeholders for better firm financial and social performance. We contend that this is a multi-level issue: managerial discretion is influenced at the institutional level by the explicit/implicit nature of CSR and at the firm level by organizational stakeholder culture, which then trickle down to the manager's level with implications for stakeholder engagement. We show that high managerial discretion may be beneficial to firms and their stakeholders, but it may also be harmful, depending on the institutional and firm level influences that determine whether the manager will behave opportunistically with an agency orientation, or more stakeholder-oriented, with active stakeholder engagement that is beneficial to the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The symposium comprises presentations of 8 research projects on the phenomenon of women in the upper corporate echelons. The presenters number 16 and hail from 9 countries and 13 unique institutions. The symposium covers a diversity of topics (e.g., corporate board quotas and codes, director appointment), theories (e.g., social categorization, economics theories), data and methodologies (e.g., interviews and questionnaires of female executives, secondary data from Boardex/Compustat, logistic regression, content analysis), and country environments (i.e., detailed discussion of Iceland, Spain, and the US). We hope that the symposium stimulates a rich debate and discussion of critical future developments in the field of women on boards. For all papers, this will be the first opportunity for presentation; however, all are very well-developed and have substantial data/theory. We will start the symposium by asking audience members to briefly introduce themselves so we know our audience, and then we will provide time at the end of the presentations for audience members to ask questions as well as to share their perspectives on these findings and any findings from their related research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between board of director "freshness" and corporate social performance (CSP) and examines the moderating role of board gender diversity in informing this relationship. Based on a sample of 1348 companies drawn from the S&P1500 group of companies over 2010-2015, the study hypothesizes a positive relationship between the proportion of fresh directors on the board and CSP. Drawing from behavioral and social integration perspectives, we find a significant relationship between board freshness and corporate social concerns, suggesting that boards with a higher proportion of fresh directors (i.e., those who have served for less than nine years) play a role in alleviating firms' corporate social concerns. We also find that companies with higher proportions of both fresh and women directors are more likely to obtain heightened corporate social strengths, reduced corporate social concerns, and better overall CSP. Our findings point to a key relationship among three separate corporate governance issues: board tenure, board gender diversity, and CSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of director tenure on director effectiveness are complex and dynamic. Longer tenured directors can become too entrenched with management which contributes to poor decision making and lack of objective monitoring, while new directors often need time to acquire the firm-specific knowledge and experience to perform their job well. Indeed, researchers have shown the peak effectiveness period for a director occurs sometime in between these late and early periods, or put differently, there is a curvilinear relationship between individual director tenure and effectiveness. In this paper, we build off these largely empirical studies of director tenure and develop a theoretical contingency model that 1) identifies three distinct phases of director effectiveness, and 2) addresses contingencies affecting the speed of reaching, and duration of peak director effectiveness. In sum, we develop theory to answer the question, "What are the contingencies that affect director effectiveness, and how do these change over the course of a director's tenure in a firm?" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) are an important instrument to improve the social and environmental performance of global supply chains. However, they are often ineffective due to a lack of cooperation between stakeholders involved. We focus our inquiry around the question: what can focal firms and their stakeholders in global supply chains do to make MSIs successful and sustainable over time? Building on the idea of value creation for stakeholders, stakeholder mindset and stakeholder responsibility, we develop a model of value creation for MSIs in global supply chains that incorporates the complexity and diversity of the collaborative stakeholder network. In so doing, we contribute to research on both MSIs and stakeholder theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing concepts from agency theory as well as director and shareholder primacy models, this study examines U.S. state chartering competition and the debate about whether Delaware incorporation provides additional firm value for shareholders. In a longitudinal study of firms with data from 1996-2013, we found that on the surface, in line with shareholder primacy goals, Delaware incorporated firms appear to have less debt, and a higher Tobin's Q than similar firms in other states, suggesting that they are managed well for shareholder returns and supporting race to the top arguments. However, when taking into account fixed effects, and expanding the sample to include those companies that are publicly traded in the U.S. but incorporated overseas, the effect of Delaware incorporation is negligible to shareholder wealth. Foreign incorporated firms provide significantly more value for shareholders over longer periods of time than do Delaware corporations. This suggests that the popularity of Delaware incorporation may be more firmly rooted in director primacy goals that offer the corporate friendly legal domain of Delaware, rather than simply shareholder value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multinational corporations (MNCs) dominate the global business arena, but traditional governance models do not map well on to these firms. Because a regulatory gap exists with MNCs, given that they do not operate within a clearly defined legal or political system, determining appropriate business conduct is even difficult for MNC boards aiming to do the right thing. However, very little research exists on how MNC governance and board practices translate between home country and various subsidiaries. Uniting political behavior theory and moral theories of global governance, we categorize four types of boards based on their legal, ethical and political orientations and then provide a framework for assessing the MNC board's propensity for reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the expansion of international trade and advancements in global monitoring systems, poor working conditions remain a serious problem in supplier facilities in developing countries. We explore this phenomenon from a stakeholder-theoretic lens, and discuss the assumptions of voluntary governance mechanisms that lead to messy governance under conventional global supply chain management. Utilizing qualitative data from a major knitwear exporting cluster in India, we show how success in governing global supply chains is dependent on concepts of primary stakeholder utility that is often it is at odds with the realities of locus of power, information asymmetry and compliance/reward systems inherent in the framework of global supply chains. As a result, while voluntary governance mechanisms are conducive to CSR best practices, they often fall short within the subcontracting stage, where a stakeholder management mindset is elusive to most participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance scholars debate the value of directors as an effective governance mechanism. We contribute to the resolution of this debate by examining the value placed on directors by shareholders, as evidenced by the market reactions to director exits, given their tenure in the firm. Drawing from human capital theory, and using empirical data from the departures of 567 directors, we find that inside directors with tenure between 3 and 11 years, and outside directors with tenure between 6 and 15 years are more highly valued than directors outside this "sweet spot", moderated by the performance of the company. Additionally, we find that resignations of directors over governance issues send a negative signal to shareholders. Our results suggest that inside directors are associated with earlier entrenchment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on board diversity suggests that diverse boards can signal quality of the firm to the public, influencing firm reputation and legitimacy. However, signals vary in nature, with different characteristics based on intent and need. We propose that board diversity may be used as a "camouflage signal" to disguise potential liability and divert attention away from underlying social issues in an organization. In a longitudinal analysis of 103 firms from 2003-2006, we find that firms with a gender discrimination lawsuit are more likely to appoint female members to their boards over the next two-year time period, suggesting the use of camouflage signaling in board appointments for gender issues. However, we did not find support for our prediction for firms facing racial discrimination suits. Instead, we found the opposite. The coefficient estimate on multiple race discrimination lawsuits is negative and statistically significant (p<.05). Firms with a history of multiple racial discrimination suits subsequently had fewer minorities on the board. Thus, firms with a history of racial discrimination lawsuits not only fail to appoint new minority BOD members, but they also end up losing minority members. Overall, our findings suggest that camouflage signaling through board composition changes is used selectively, where there is a lower risk of negative feedback and the perception of false signals. Our findings provide insight into both signaling theory and antecedents to board diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]