DETERMINANTS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY DISCLOSURE:
AN APPLICATION OF STAKEHOLDER THEORY
ROBIN W. ROBERTS
School o f Accountancy, University of Missouri - Columbia
STAKEHOLDER THEORY
The stakeholder concept
Freeman (1984) defines a stakeholder as 'any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the firms objectives'.Stakeholders of the firm include stockholders,creditors, employees, customers, suppliers,public interest groups, and governmental bodies.Ansoff (1965) was the first to use the term'stakeholder theory' in defining the objectives of the firm. A major objective of the firm was to attain the ability to balance the conflicting demands of various stakeholders in the firm.
Freeman (1983) categorized the development of the stakeholder concept into a corporate planning and business policy model and a corporate social responsibility model of stakeholder management. The corporate planning and business policy model of the stakeholder concept focuses on developing and evaluating the approval of corporate strategic decisions by groups whose support is required for the corporation to continue to exist. The behavior of various stakeholder groups is considered a constraint on the strategy that is developed by management to best match corporate resources with its environment. In this model stakeholders are identified as customers, owners, suppliers and public groups and are not adversarial in nature.
The corporate social responsibility model of stakeholder analysis extends the corporate planning model to include external influences on the firm that may assume adversarial positions. The adversarial groups are characterized as regulatory or special interest groups concerned with social issues. The corporate social responsibility model allows a strategic planning model to adapt to changes in the social demands of nontraditional power groups.
Freeman (1983) discusses the dynamics of stakeholder influences on corporate decisions.A major role of corporate management is to assess the importance of meeting stakeholder demands in order to achieve the strategic objectives of the firm. As the level of stakeholder power increases the importance of meeting stakeholder demands increases, also.From Freemans model, Ullmann (1985) developed a conceptual model of corporate social responsibility activities. Thus, Ullmann provides a conceptual basis for studying corporate social responsibility activities in a stakeholder framework. Ullmann concluded that stakeholder theory provides an appropriate justification for incorporating strategic decision making into studies of corporate social responsibility activities. The Ullmann model is discussed in detail in the next major section of the paper.
Applications of stakeholder theory
Stakeholder theory has been applied to analytical and empirical analyses of the firm and the environment in which the firm operates.The proposition that stakeholder interests may conflict was tested by Sturdivant (1979). He used a survey to compare the social responsibility attitudes of activist group leaders and corporate managers. As hypothesized, there were significant differences between attitude scores of activists and corporate managers. The scores indicated that activists were stronger in their beliefs that businesses should be responsive to social issues. Sturdivant concluded that corporate management should not necessarily change their beliefs to conform to those of stakeholders, but managers should consider conflicting stakeholder interests when planning corporate strategy.
In a study of strategic performance, Chakravarthy ( 1986 ) discussed the inadequacy of traditional profitability measures as indicators of strategic performance and proposed the use of a stakeholder satisfaction measure. He argued that well-adapted firms (i.e. firms whose strategic performance is considered excellent) realize that co-operation of a firms multiple stakeholder groups is a 'necessary condition for excellence'. A Fortune magazine survey of corporate reputations in which stakeholder satisfaction was considered was cited by Chakravarthy as supporting his contention.
Cornell amp; Shapiro (1987) discuss the role of stakeholders other than investors and managers in the development of a firms financial policy.They contend that a firm issues 'implicit claims' to non-investor stakeholders that must be considered when developing a firm strategy regarding capital structure. Implicit claims,such as uninterrupted service to customers,cannot be separated from a firms business dealings and impact a firms total risk (i.e.expected cash flows). Barton et al. (1989)empirically tested Cornell and Shapiros assertion that stakeholder theory may be used to explain cross-sectional variations in firms capital structures. Using a diversification strategy variable to proxy for a stakeholder construct, they found empirical results consistent with stakeholder predictions. Their research, along with the other studies reviewed, provides evidence that stakeholder theory is a viable approach to predicting and explaining management behavior.
ULLMANNS FRAMEWORK
Ullmann (1985) concluded that corporate social responsibility models developed in prior research are misspecified because the relationship of firm strategy to the social responsibility decision has not been incorporated into the empirical tests. He developed a contingency framework for predicting levels of corporate social responsibility activity and disclosure based on the stakeholder concept formalized by Freeman (1984). Ullmanns framework is consistent with the conceptual view of corporate social reporting discussed by Dierkes amp; Antal(1985), that publicly disclosed information regarding corporate social responsibility activities provides a basis for dialogue with
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企业社会责任披露决定因素：
利益相关者理论的应用
ROBIN W·罗伯茨
会计学院，密苏里大学 - 哥伦比亚
利益相关者概念
Freeman(1984)将利益相关者定义为“任何能够影响或受公司目标实现影响的群体或个人”。该公司的股东包括股东、债权人、雇员、客户、供应商、公共利益集团和政府机构。Ansoff(1965)是第一个用“利益相关者理论”来定义公司目标的人。公司的一个主要目标是想具备达到平衡公司各利益相关者的相互冲突的能力。
Freeman(1983)将利益相关者概念分为企业规划和商业政策模型和利益相关者管理的企业社会责任模型。利益相关者概念的企业规划和商业政策模型侧重于开发和评估企业战略决策，这些组织的支持是公司继续存在的必要条件。不同利益相关者群体的行为被认为是管理层开发策略的一个约束，该策略是为了与企业资源与环境相匹配而开发的。在这个模型中，利益相关者被确定为客户、所有者、供应商和公共团体，并且在本质上它们之间不是敌对的。
利益相关者分析的企业社会责任模型扩展了企业规划模型，将外部影响也包括在公司战略中，从而产生对抗性的立场。对抗性集团的特点是涉及社会问题的管制或集团的特别利益。企业社会责任模式使战略规划模型能够适应非传统电力集团的社会需求变化。
Freeman(1983)讨论了利益相关者对公司决策的影响。企业管理的主要作用是评估满足利益相关者需求的重要性，以实现公司的战略目标。因为随着利益相关者权力水平的提高，满足利益相关者需求的重要性也随之增加。从Freeman的模型上得到的启发，Ullmann(1985)发展了企业社会责任活动的概念模型。因此，Ullmann为研究涉众框架中的企业社会责任活动提供了概念基础。Ullmann认为，利益相关者理论为将战略决策纳入企业社会责任活动的研究提供了适当的理由。在本文的下一个主要部分中将详细讨论Ullmann模型。
利益相关者理论的应用
利益相关者理论已被应用于公司的分析和实证分析，以及公司运作的环境。Sturdivant(1979)测试了利益相关者利益冲突的主要论点。他利用一项调查来比较激进组织领导人和企业管理者的社会责任态度。正如假设的那样，积极分子和公司负责人的态度有很大的不同。这些表明，活动人士在他们的信念中更坚定，即企业应该对社会问题做出反应。Sturdivant的结论是，企业管理层不应该改变他们的信念，以符合利益相关者的观点，但在规划公司战略时，管理者应考虑利益相关者利益冲突。
在一项战略绩效研究中，Chakravarthy（1986）讨论了传统的盈利能力指标作为战略绩效指标的不足，并提出了使用利益相关者满意措施的建议。他认为，适应性强的公司（即那些战略表现被认为是优秀的公司）意识到，一个公司的多个利益相关者群体的合作是公司发展的“卓越的必要条件”。 在《财富》杂志的一份关于企业声誉的调查中，提到了利益相关者的满意程度，Chakravarthy认为这是对他论点的支持。
Cornell和Shapiro（1987）讨论了投资者和公司负责人在制定公司财务政策时所扮演的角色。他们认为，在制定资本结构的坚定战略时，必须考虑对非投资者利益相关者的“隐性索赔”。 隐性的索赔，例如对客户的不间断服务，不能与公司的业务往来相分离，因为它影响公司的总风险（即：预期现金流)。巴顿等人（1989）实证检验了Cornell和Shapiro的主张，即利益相关者理论可以用来解释公司资本结构的横向变化。通过使用多样化策略变量来代理涉众构造，他们发现了与涉众预测一致的经验结果。他们的研究证明了利益相关者理论是预测和解释管理行为的可行方法。
Ullmann框架
Ullmann（1985）得出的结论是，在先前的研究中发展起来的企业社会责任模式是错误的，因为企业战略与社会责任决策的关系并没有被纳入到实证检验中。他建立了一个应急框架，根据Freeman（1984）所确定的利益相关者概念，预测企业社会责任活动的水平和披露。Ullmann的框架与Dierkesamp;Antal（1985）所讨论的企业社会报告的概念观点一致，公开披露的关于企业社会责任活动的信息为与不同业务群体的对话提供了基础。
Ullmann（1985）提出了一个三维模型，足以解释社会信息披露与社会和经济绩效之间的几乎所有的相关性。利益相关者的权力被作为模型的第一个维度来讨论，解释一个公司将会对利益相关者的需求的强度做出反应。利益相关者(如：所有者、债权人或监管者）影响公司管理的权力被视为利益相关者对公司所需资源的控制程度的函数（Ullmann，1985）。利益相关方的资源越重要，公司的持续生存能力越提升，对利益相关者的要求就越有可能得到解决。如果社会责任活动被视为一种有效的处理利益相关者的管理策略，那么利益相关者的力量与社会绩效和社会信息披露之间的积极关系就有望实现。
正如下面所讨论的，有证据表明，社会责任活动有助于发展和维持与股东、债权人和政治团体的良好关系。通过履行和披露社会责任活动，发展公司的社会责任，是管理利益相关者关系的战略计划的一部分。
该模型的第二个维度是公司对企业社会责任活动的战略态势。战略态势描述了公司关键决策者对社会需求的反应模式。UUmann将战略姿态视为主动或被动。一个公司的管理层试图通过社会责任活动来影响他们的组织的地位，这是一个积极的姿态。如果一家公司的管理层没有持续监控其与利益相关者的关系，也没有制定具体的项目来解决利益相关者的影响，那么该公司呈现出一个被动的战略姿态。因此，战略资态越积极，预期的社会责任活动和披露就越重要。
该模型的第三个维度涉及该公司过去和当前的经济表现。满足社会责任目标的重要性可能次于满足直接影响公司持续生存能力的经济需求。因为经济效益直接影响社会责任项目的财务能力。因此，考虑到一定程度的利益相关者的权力和战略姿态，公司的经济表现越好，其社会责任活动和信息披露就越高。
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