An Inductive Model of Collaboration From the Stakeholder’s Perspective

Abstract

This work emerged from funded research examining collaboration among stakeholder organizations present at three U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites. The authors examine issues such as how and why stakeholder groups form collaborative alliances when dealing with the target organization, what leaders of stakeholder organizations actually think about when collaborating to deal with the target organization, and what outcomes result from the collaboration process. Drawing on stakeholder theory and research in interorganizational collaboration, the authors used an inductive, interview-based methodology to build a model of collaboration among nonprofit stakeholder groups. The model contributes to the descriptive stream of stakeholder theory and, in turn, has implications for the instrumental stream. The model also offers implications for future researchers, leaders of stakeholder alliances, and leaders of target organizations.As summarized by Donaldson and Preston (1995), there are three primary streams of research within the stakeholder tradition: instrumental, normative, and descriptive. Instrumental stakeholder research focuses on how firms pursue their interests through managing relationships with stakeholder groups. Normative stakeholder theory focuses on the moral obligations of managers with regard to their stakeholders. Descriptive stakeholder theory attempts to describe the actual behavior of managers, firms, and stakeholders. Of these, the descriptive stream is the least developed 162

Motivators of Mobilization

“…On the other hand, stakeholders may also engage in behaviours aimed at supporting the interests of the firm (Harrison et al 2010;Hayibor 2012). For these reasons, as noted by Butterfield et al (2004), the overall conclusion of the instrumental branch of stakeholder theory is that managing stakeholder interests is absolutely critical for the well-being of the firm's bottom line (Berman et al 1999;Jensen 2002;Waddock and Graves 1997).…”

“…Berman et al 1999;Ogden and Watson 1999). Butterfield et al (2004) note that despite scholarly calls for development of stakeholder theory from the stakeholder's perspective, very little work from this viewpoint has occurred. Indeed, Laplume et al (2008) found that only 12 % of articles concerning stakeholder theory were devoted to questions about stakeholder perspectives or behaviour.…”

Business partnerships with nonprofits: working to solve mutual problems in New Zealand

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Implementation of Creative Education Policy in Russian Higher Education Curricula

“…First, I broke down the data for the appearance of patterns and themes. Second, I analyzed and open-coded the resulted categories into "thought units" (Butterfield, Reed, & Lemak, 2004). I applied a coding-recoding strategy to my analysis to make sure my findings are dependable.…”