Contenu du sommaire : Nouvelles perspectives sur l'engagement des parties prenantes : enjeux, acteurs, recherches

This article contains a critical analysis of stakeholder theorizing since the initial ideas developed in this area by R. Edward Freeman, in particular from the perspective of business ethics. It underlines in particular the need to question the corporate-centricity in stakeholder theorizing and to give a face to the different categories of stakeholders.

The purpose of this article is to present the roots of the concept of Stakeholders and to highlight the main criticism that must be overcome to improve its robustness.

The aim of this article is to propose a new classification of stakeholders based on the concept of commitment. Commitment is analysed as a social and organisational learning process shared between managers and their stakeholders. This commitment is a necessary condition - even if it is not sufficient - to the corporate social responsibility of the business. Applied to the membership of a French mutual bank in order to identify the members' varying levels of commitment, this new mapping technique can help managers to adapt their practices to the degree of commitment of each identified group of members, and to modify their financial products and communications to foster commitment among as many of these groups as possible.

The connection between taxation and the global responsibility of companies is (a little bit) difficult to get to grips with. Nevertheless, the link is obvious, particularly if we consider the tax system's development but also the organization of its management. A new position of the tax administration is taking shape. Indeed, it is committing itself in this general responsibility. The result could be the creation of a true taxation contract within the framework of a renewed taxation regulation.

The development of tourism in the Sahara is achieved at the expense of a fragile environment and society. If tour operators do gain, the most responsible of them, aware of the damages, multiply the charters and ethical commitments of all kinds. These efforts, too often merely cosmetic, however, may not solve the problem of incompatibility between global responsibility and tourism in the Sahara.

The academic literature on diversity highlights the economic reasons why HDR seek to integrate persons with disabilities. Based on a qualitative survey conducted among 19 HRD and project leaders, this study aims at seeing if the economic argument is sufficient to explain the implementation of measures for the integration of persons with disabilities. Since these policies are also linked to intrinsic motivation and meaning given by HDR and project leaders, this study reveals the importance for them of autonomy, relationship to the persons with disabilities and of the feeling that these policies benefit them.

The research shows that performance measures about corporate social responsibility are not integrated significantly into strategic performance measurement systems. Nevertheless, corporate social responsibility performance measures tend to become more developed in companies that are larger, are listed on a public stock exchange and in industrial firms. Key words: corporate social responsibility, performance measurement systems, management control.

This article presents the development of a role play based on the case of an investment of the Finnish company Botnia in Uruguay which caused a serious political crisis between Uruguay and Argentina. Through a ‘phronetic' approach to learning, this role play makes it possible to understand how political issues can become central in questions of stakeholder engagement.

The aim of this article is to analyze the process through which new categories of stakeholders emerge and constitute themselves as sufficiently powerful, legitimate and committed actors to become partners in companies' strategies in the area of corporate social responsibility and diversity management. To do this, the article mobilizes the theory of social regulation developed by Jean- Daniel Reynaud that insists on the role of social actors in the development and enforcement of rules governing organizations and that underlines that these regulations may lead to the emergence of new actors.

We address the question of how organisations can gain the involvement of their stakeholders in CSR certifications projects. Applying the stakeholder theory and the actor network theory, we conceptualize stakeholder involvement in the certification process of a diversity label. We also delineate the potential of our framework for future managerial applications.

Based on a participative and experimental methodology, this paper proposes a set of variables to qualify the level of sustainability of emerging interorganizational governance practices. These variables are also action levers that allow reaching new social compromises inside inter-organizational partnerships that are balanced and durable.

This research aims to explore the ethical dimension of corporate political strategies. Beyond the unethical behaviours observed in the practices of influence, it is the intrinsic nature of lobbying that led to question its compatibility with the public interest and democratic values. The risk of drifting into influence peddling and corruption will then be analyzed.

“ Every low prices “, such is the slogan of the company Wal-Mart, the first company of distribution to the world. Bush senior, former president of the United States adds in 1992 that “ the success of Wal-Mart is the success of America “. Certainly, the group publishes remarkable results (profits) on the economic plan, but disastrous on the redundancy plan. To have a better understanding of the case Wal-Mart, we shall expose at first the characteristics of the American's right, at once federal (thus applicable at the level of the whole country), but also national (principle of subsidiarity). Then some historic marks, we shall allow to clarify “ the effect Wal-Mart “, to characterize at the macroeconomic level by an increase of the productivity and a decline general of the prices(prizes), Wal-Mart would be responsible for a decline of 3 % of the inflation in the USA, but in the price(prize) of a deflationary social model. The current world crisis, in particular the decline of the purchasing power provokes an increase of turnovers of Wal-Mart, even the consumers who boycotted systematically the company come to purchase there. But “ethics pays” say the Americans, Wal-Mart will probably not remain an exception.

The topic of the research is analyizing French auditors ethics dilemmas by using the conceptual framework of ethical ideologies developed by Forsyth (1980) : situationism, absolutism, subjectivism and exceptionism.

The subprime crisis showed that governance mechanisms are still far from perfect in most organisations. Indeed, the majority of organisations do not appear to consider governance as a key issue. Instead, they work from the standpoint of formal respect for the regulatory or professional provisions in place rather than one of real adherence to governance principles. In this context, the article's main objective is to identify the mechanisms of governance applicable to companies and explain their sources of inefficiency in France. We believe that, in addition to cultural, organisational and environmental issues, the main explanation is that executives consider governance mechanisms to be more to do with the non-destruction of value rather than with real value creation.

The article aims to show how companies can use the brand name as a means to persuade a national origin which is not theirs and then to address the consequences of such decisions on quality perception. The empirical study uses brands created for this research by manipulating perceived origin. The perception of the quality of these brands has been influenced by the origin to which they were associated.

Are the decisions of hiring of executives and managers always economically rational? The hypothesis of the article is that, in diverse degrees, they recover from social conventions which are embedded in the economic and functional reasons. The methodology of the article is based on several searches in human resources management, which study the necessary skills to exercise manager's profession, and phenomena of uncertainty bound to the act of hiring. It uses the concepts of the program conventionalist in economy and management. The social and moral conventions, which condition the hiring of the managers, correspond to the country and to the configuration of institutions which characterizes it.

The aim of this paper is to asses, in an exploratory way, whether the creation of collective ethical charters in the tour operating industry has an impact on the ethics of competitive behaviours, as perceived by top managers. We found that even if most top managers interviewed believe that such charters have a positive impact on the ethics of competitive behaviours, it can also be used by some tour operators as a way to improve their image.