The institutionalization of firms-stakeholder dialogue. A comparative analysis of FTSE4GOOD companies in United States, Europe, and Japan

Although the emphasis on stakeholder dialogue (SD) has recently increased in the extant literature, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the SD initiatives undertaken by firms and the literature is still fragmented. According to focal studies on the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and institutional contexts, this paper aims at advancing the understanding of how institutional contexts impact on the adoption of SD into practice. Moreover, adopting the institutional theory, this study aims to understand how different CSR institutional contexts influence SD, through an analysis of 2,797 SD initiatives realized by 418 companies listed in the FTSE4Good Global index at 31st December 2011 from 20 different countries (in Europe, North America and Asia). Overall, our findings offer contribution to empirical research about the link between SD initiatives and different contexts, thus filling the gap and providing evidences to theoretical debate. Results confirmed that the different CSR institutional contexts determine firms’ SD approach.