1 - Victor Pessoa de Melo Gomes Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo - FEA - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração - PPGA FEA-USP
2 - Italo Anderson Taumaturgo dos Santos Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo - FEA - Campus Cidade Universitária
3 - Ronaldo de Oliveira Santos Jhunior Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo - FEA - Administração
4 - Mariana Torres Uchôa Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo - FEA - Departamento de Administração
Reumo
According to Freeman (1984), stakeholders are groups or individuals that can affect or be affected by the organization. We can see the inclusion of new concepts in strategic management such as reciprocity, equity, fairness, justice, among others (Bosse, Phillips & Harrison, 2009; Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2014). With respect to justice, this concept has been the focus of many studies from a wide variety of subjects and lenses in the field of management. As a result, it’s important to understand how justice has been studied and applied through the lens of the Stakeholder Theory.
The present study aims to attain two goals: first, to provide a theoretical background and framework about justice in the Stakeholder Theory literature and how this concept has been applied on some the most relevant studies in the field; and second, to present new avenues of research regarding the interconnections between the concept of justice and Stakeholder Theory. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to answer the following research question: How the concept of justice has been addressed in the Stakeholder Theory literature?
Organizational justice was characterized by a descriptive approach, in which it sought to understand the posture of managers towards their stakeholders, composed of three main components: distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justicee. In stakeholder theory, distributive justice is present in through active stakeholder participation and the procedural and interactional justice happened when the organization interacts with stakeholders by giving voice to them. Companies that maintain distributive, procedural and interactional justice manage to create more value over time.
After the systematic review of the data, we propose propositions for future research. Propositions: 1- How can justice be applied to secondary stakeholders on an organizational level?/ 2- Can others types of justice influence primary stakeholders value creation?/ 3- What is the role of interactional justice in firm performance and value creation for primary stakeholders?/ 4 - Does one type of justice leads to better firm performance and value creation for stakeholders over another? Is it possible to establish a hierarchical degree with respect to justice and its outcomes for the stakeholders?
Stakeholder Theory employs a myriad of concepts with the goal to verify and broaden its vision and improve the organization-stakeholders relationship. The concept of justice has, in the meantime, been the focus of many studies, being a key component in model development and the improvement of managerial strategies (Freeman, 1994; Harrison et al., 2010).
Bosse, D.A, Phillips, R.A, Harrison, J.S. (2009). Stakeholders, reciprocity, and firm performance. Strategic Management Journal 30: 447–456.
Phillips, R. A. (1997) Stakeholder Theory and a Principle of Fairness', Business Ethics Quarterly 7(1), 51-66.
Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., & Wicks, A. C. (2007). Managing for stakeholders: Survival, reputation, and success. Yale University Press
Harrison, J. S., Bosse, D. A., & Phillips, R. A. (2010). Managing for stakeholders, stakeholder utility functions, and competitive advantage. Strategic management journal, 31(1), 58-74.