The management of stakeholder dialogue in different institutional contexts: an empirical study on FTSE4GOOD companies

The emphasis on the role of stakeholder dialogue in managerial systems has recently increased in the extant literature, but empirical evidence on the determinants of stakeholder dialogue initiatives is still fragmented. This paper applies institutional theory to analyze the stakeholder dialogue practices realized by companies. It proposes a broader perspective on its pattern of development. The study is based on an analysis of 2797 SD initiatives realized by 418 companies listed in the FTSE4Good Global index on December 31st 2011 from 20 different countries (in Europe, North America, and Asia). The findings confirm the existence of distinctions among the stakeholder dialogue realized by companies in different national institutional contexts. Thus, it is suggested that SD should not be intended only as a voluntary, but firms should recognize it as a necessary managerial practice to build a broad information base useful to align sustainability performance and managerial systems to the institutional context where the company operates.