Stakeholder Dialogues for Environmental Sustainability

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Stakeholder Dialogues for Environmental
Sustainability

• Mariëtte van Huijstee
• 10-6-2006

Copernicus Institute Sustainable Development and
Innovation
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Presentation Outline

• Introduction to the Stakeholder Dialogue concept
• Introduction to dialogue literature
• Research framework
• First exploratory phase - theory
• (Paper) - method
• - empirical results
• (preliminary) Conclusion
• Discussion How to continue my research?

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Stakeholder Dialogues (SDs)

• (provisional) Definition voluntary, interactive,
  2-way communication processes between parties
  from different societal sectors that have mutual
  interest to participate in the process
• My focus Business-NGO interactions with regard
  to environmental issues
• Link Partnership- Stakeholder Dialogue concept

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Stakeholder Dialogues in Sustainability Reports

• Our dialogue with stakeholders, especially NGOs,
  can lead to new and innovative solutions for
  sustainability matters
• Contributing to sustainable development means to
  react in a societal and environmental responsible
  manner to market demands. This starts with
  listening to stakeholders to begin to understand
  societal expectations

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Dialogues in Literature

• Authentic dialogues have certain
  characteristics joint decision making on agenda
  and rules of the game, search for consensus,
  sincere, open speakers etc.
• Authentic dialogues have certain qualities/
  outcomes social learning, convergence of
  perceptions and definitions, innovative
  solutions, consensus.
• Form X leads to outcome Y
• Scepsis - Is this form realized?
• Are outcomes realized?
• Added value of dialogues in terms of
  environmental performance of MNCs ?

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Research Goal

• To contribute to the understanding of the added
  value of dialogues between MNCs and environmental
  NGOs for the environmental performance of MNCs

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Main Question

• If and in what way do stakeholder dialogues
  contribute to the environmental performance of
  MNCs?

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2 levels of analysis

• Dialogue practice as a whole (MNC case studies)
• Specific dialogues (survey approach)

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Central Focus in Paper

• In this paper the focus is on the
  characteristics of the dialogue practice of MNCs
  known for their active stakeholder engagement.
  Organizational learning theory is applied to
  examine, interpret and explain the observed
  consequences of dialogue practices for the
  environmental performance of the MNCs and for the
  relationship between the MNCs and its
  stakeholders.

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Theory

• Learning capacity is crucial for an organization
  to survive
• Dialogues can stimulate learning
• Organizational Learning single and double loop
  learning

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Method

• Three MNCs Bank, Oil company, Animal Feed
  processing company
• Dialogues on the corporate level
• Preperation Sustainability reports
• Interviews with Sustainability/ communication
  department at MNC headquarters
• Interviews with three NGOs

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Origin of the Dialogue Practice

• NGO campaigns, Negative publicity
• Reputation management considerations

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Types of dialogues

• One to one dialogues relationship building
• Workshops knowledge exchange
• Conferences knowledge exchange and visibility
• Roundtables setting industry/ sector standards

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Dialogue outcomes and effects

• Knowledge and expertise
• New relations, increased understanding and trust
• Partnerships
• New or changed corporate policies
• Amendments in (planned) corporate activities

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Preliminary conclusions

• Dialogue practice inflamed by reputation crisis
  stakeholders and sustainability issues can no
  longer be ignored
• gt Double loop learning
• Dialogues provide businesses with priorities for
  their activities in sustainability arena
• gt Single loop learning

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Preliminary conclusions (continued)

• Developing new images of each other
• gt Double loop learning
• there is business in sustainability
• gt Double loop learning

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The next step

• A survey on dialogue characteristics could be a
  nice extra, but not more than that.

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Discussion back to the drawing board

• (Theoretically) Is the organizational learning
  perspective an interesting perspective? What
  other theoretical perspectives could be used?
• (Methodologically) How to proceed with my
  research to answer the main question regarding
  the contribution of dialogues to the
  environmental performance of MNCs?

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• Thank You!