Stakeholder engagement through empowerment: The case of coffee farmers

Abstract

While most studies on stakeholder engagement focus on high‐power stakeholders (typically, employees), limited attention has been devoted to the engagement of low‐power stakeholders. These have been defined as vulnerable stakeholders for their low capacity to influence corporations. Our research is framed around the engagement of low‐power stakeholders in the coffee industry who are, paradoxically, critical resource providers for the major roasters. Through the case study of Lavazza—the leading Italian roaster—we investigate empowerment actions addressed to smallholder farmers located in Brazil, India, East Africa, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. We contribute to the theoretical discussion around engagement and empowerment by developing a framework linking together areas of empowerment (defined in the literature) and specific empowerment actions (emerging from our interviews). Our insights shed light on how organizations can design empowerment strategies leading to more effective stakeholder engagement and how empowerment actions can contribute to turn low‐power stakeholders into active business partners. We demonstrate that moving from a traditional competitive view of corporate–stakeholder relationships to a stakeholder theory view based on a logic of cooperative partnerships reinforces the idea that stakeholder engagement and empowerment are both entangled with the value creation process.

The perception of tourism in coffee‐producing equatorial countries: An empirical analysis

“…Indeed, agriculture can be considered as “a legacy from local people traditions and activities” (Rogerso, ); it reinforces the process of cultural identity and promotes local territories and communities (Donert & Light, ; Jansen‐Verbeke, ). Furthermore, this can create new opportunities to protect and maintain core elements of a certain territory where some social and economic conditions exist (Candelo, Casalegno, Civera, & Mosca, ; Civera, De Colle, & Casalegno, ), which, together with climate change, represent a challenge and a threat (Sun et al, ). Again, it becomes clear that it is possible to link the benefit of rural tourism to stakeholder theory, which captures the efforts of creating common benefits (Byrd, ).…”

“…From the present coffee farmers’ point of view, local communities in developing countries are helped by NGOs and coffee roasters to augment their social inclusion and sense of entrepreneurship—at least in the farming sector (Civera et al, ). Thus, some communities have reached a fairly strong level of awareness of how to improve income in new ways, even though, for some coffee farmers’ communities, the migration of youth from productive country areas still represents a threat (Candelo et al, ).…”

“…Although the relationship between agriculture and tourism has been researched in mature economies (Dougherty & Green, 2011;Hermans, 1981), in developing economies, it is viewed as particularly complex (Torres & Momsen, 2011) From the present coffee farmers' point of view, local communities in developing countries are helped by NGOs and coffee roasters to augment their social inclusion and sense of entrepreneurship-at least in the farming sector (Civera et al, 2019). Thus, some communities have reached a fairly strong level of awareness of how to improve income in new ways, even though, for some coffee farmers' communities, the migration of youth from productive country areas still represents a threat .…”

Creative and Sustainable Tourism: The Case of Ainu in Japan

“…The issue concerning the inclusion of local ties gains a strong value when a certain territory also depends on tourism. Indeed, tourism represents a good means of livelihood for local (indigenous) communities, especially when they are powerless and marginalised, since it may eventually lead to economic change and major social inclusion (Potts, 2003;Phillip et al, 2010;Jamali & Neville, 2011;Candelo et al, 2018;Civera et al, 2019).…”

“…This shows that the colonial interests of members of the Japanese monoculture defined trade, land use and a power dynamic that privileged themselves, working against the development of the territory and its stakeholders (Salvioni & Bosetti, 2014;Brondoni, 2014;Dawkins et al, 2015;Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2016;Fassin et al, 2017;Civera et al, 2019), without considering the beneficial role of the multi stakeholder initiatives (Brondoni et al, 2019). This paper has its roots in some issues concerning the reason that the Ainu people have been deprived of their rights to their own culture and control over their resources.…”