Managing the relationships with and among stakeholders for the good of society

The Business-Society Management department at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, seeks a highly motivated PhD student interesting in studying a topic related to how to better organize and manage organizations’ relationships with stakeholders and among stakeholders. “Better” refers here to a more positive impact on stakeholders, and especially the weakest ones among them (less qualified workers, minorities, less educated consumers, etc.), as well as society as a whole and the natural environment.

Strong applicants typically have backgrounds in business, economics, or psychology and are looking to pursue careers as world-class academic researchers. Students define and execute their own research projects with the support of their supervisory team. Creativity, self-direction, and a passion for scientific research are therefore essential qualities.

Stakeholder governance, stakeholder management, corporate social (ir)responsibility, trade-offs and moral dilemmas in organizations

In our troubled times where the role of business in society is increasingly questioned, there is more and more societal pressure for organizations, in general, and firms, in particular, to manage their relationships with stakeholders less as means to make more money and much more for the good of society. This calls scholars to produce scientific knowledge that can offer guidance to managers who want to manage “better” their organization’s relationships with stakeholders as well as the relationships among stakeholders. Under this large umbrella of managing the relationships with and among stakeholders for the good of society, there are quite a few areas of research you could consider studying.

Area 1: Stakeholders’ reactions to firms’ orientations towards stakeholders

While stakeholder theorists have long argued that stakeholders will be more willing to create value (buy from the firm, work for the firm, invest in the firm) when the firm adopts a stakeholder orientation, there is little empirical research about how stakeholders react to the different ways in which firms manage stakeholders. A significant contribution would be to uncover the mechanisms underlying stakeholders’ reactions and explore the boundary conditions of the expected positive relationship between a stakeholder orientation and stakeholders’ willingness to create value.

Another topic wide open for investigation is organizations’ capacity to change their stakeholders’ beliefs and behaviours beyond their relationship with the organization. While mostly depicted as harmful to society and often accused of greenwashing, organizations could have a much larger impact than so far recognized if some of their socially responsible practices are contagious and lead their stakeholders to also become more socially responsible. It can happen on a surprising large scale as McDonalds transforming the production of eggs in the U.S. by setting its goal of being entirely cage-free in the U.S. by 2025. It can also happen on a smaller scale when employees learn more socially responsible behaviour at work and practice them in the private sphere.

Area 2. Stakeholder governance

Stakeholder governance refers to the study of how to more formally organize the relationships with and among stakeholders to encourage cooperation. It is a new but fast-growing area of research in the strategy field. Questions in this area are for example: which organizational form (publicly traded firms, cooperatives, non-profit organizations, etc.) is best to foster cooperation for a specific objective? How does purpose support value creation? How should non-shareholding stakeholders be involved in governing the corporation?

Area 3: Powerful stakeholders and the management of trade-offs

Businesses and managers are often pictured as the big, bad wolves and stakeholders often pictured as the victims. However, the situation is much more complex when stakeholders have conflicting interests. In such situations, managers have to navigate the powerful stakeholders’ pressures to put their own needs first in order to develop relationships with and among stakeholders that are better for less powerful stakeholders. In this area, you could investigate

- the motives and behaviours of powerful stakeholders

- how managers make decisions when they are faced with trade-offs among stakeholders’ interests.

Area 4: Corporate social irresponsibility

Whereas many people express the urge to see organizations become more responsible, stakeholders often fail to pressure organizations to change. In particular, despite the moral outrage expressed in the media in the face of big scandals involving organizations, customers often keep buying, employees keep working for these companies, investors keep investing or are back very quickly, etc. It is a puzzle why stakeholders, who together could force organizations to change, so often fail to mobilize. You could search for explanations at multiple levels (individual, group, social norms and national cultures).  

The list of areas is not exhaustive. Other ideas of topics that fall within the broad theme of managing relationships with and among stakeholders are very welcome. The first fourth months of your PhD will be dedicated to exploring potential topics for your PhD under the guidance from your supervisory team.

Besides the weekly interactions with your supervisory team, you can expect to be embedded in a very active research community. The diversity and interdisciplinarity of the members of our department make the department a lively, creative, and intellectually stimulating place to conduct research.

You will work in close collaboration with your supervisory team and other faculty on tasks that include:

• Identifying novel research questions within the broad area sketched above
• Understanding the theoretical foundations and prior literature relevant to addressing these questions
• Identifying the relationships to study to answer the novel questions and formalizing them in a set of hypotheses
• Gathering experimental or observational data to test hypotheses
• Understanding the critical assumptions needed to draw causal inferences from empirical results
• Presenting research findings at international conferences
• Writing up findings for publication in top international journals
• Attending classes and seminars (including those offered at other universities) to further develop thinking and research skills
• Participating in and contributing to departmental research event (PhD seminar series, research seminars, etc.)
• Teaching (no more than 20% of your time) to develop the research skills needed for a successful academic career

Through courses, research seminars, applied and theoretical research with faculty, and coaching from the supervisory team, you will gain the requisite experience to do high-quality research independently. The actual project will be defined by you in collaboration with your supervisory team. This requires creativity, self-direction, and passion for top-notch scientific research.

Regarding the empirical methods, many options are possible. The PhD project could involve survey and experimental methods. You could also use machine-learning techniques to code texts that capture organizations’ actions and/or stakeholders’ reactions. Your work may also involve qualitative work as an exploratory step to formulate relevant research questions and relevant hypotheses. You could choose for a mixed methods dissertation the papers use different methodologies.

We are looking for applicants

• with a strong intellectual curiosity, eagerness to learn, and openness to criticism and other perspectives
• with a background in business studies, economics, psychology, or a related discipline
• who have a strong interest in pursuing a career as a world-class academic researcher
• preferably have proven expertise and interest in quantitative methods (surveys, experiments) as well as statistics. Applicants should be eager to learn new methodological tools
• excellent speaking and writing ability in English, ideally with experience writing for a scientific audience

All application documents required by ERIM can be found here.  

Below are the test scores required by ERIM, please be advised to plan your tests well before the application deadline as it may take some time for your official scores to be released:

- GMAT/GRE scores above the 85th percentile, not older than 5 years

- IELTS/TOEFL test scores, not older than 2 years:

  IELTS: minimum overall band score 7.5; no band score lower than 6.5

  Internet-based TOEFL: minimum total score 100, no sub-score lower than 23

  Paper-based TOEFL: minimum score 600

You will write papers that together form the PhD dissertation and that can be published in top-tier management journals. The research group at RSM has a strong record publishing in these journals, which are listed on ERIM´s webpage: www.erim.eur.nl/about-erim/erim-journals-list-ejl/

To strengthen your international research network and complement your time at RSM, you will receive funding for a 3- to 6-month research visit at a top international university. Past visits have included Stanford, Wharton, Harvard, Florida, Chicago, Colorado, Cornell, Columbia, and UCLA.

The Business-Society Management department has strong connections with the international community of academics studying the different areas described above. PhD students benefit from these connections, among others, in the form of access to academic expertise and invitations to workshops.

Members of the department are also well connected with executives in sustainable and innovative organizations.

By taking the point of view of society as well as the point of view of business, all members of our department do research that is societally relevant and contributes to RSM’s mission to be a force for positive change in the world. We expect this research project to be likewise societally relevant, by offering new insights into how to manage the relationships with and among stakeholders in ways that better serve stakeholders’ and society’s needs.

The PhD research should be highly original. We also expect the research to be carried out with scientific rigor and the utmost integrity. As such each paper of the project should be a significant scientific contribution to the research on the management of relationships with and among stakeholders.

Bridoux, F. M. & Stoelhorst, J.W. (2022). EXPRESS: Stakeholder Theory, Strategy, and Organization: Past, Present and Future. Strategic Organization. doi: 14761270221127628.

Bridoux, F.M. & Stoelhorst, J.W. (2022). Stakeholder governance: Solving the collective action problems in joint value creation. Academy of Management Review, 47(2), 214–236.

Bridoux, F.M. & Stoelhorst, J.W. (2016). Stakeholder relationships and social welfare: A behavioral theory of contributions to joint value creation. Academy of Management Review, 41 (2), 225-251. doi: 10.5465/amr.2013.0475

Bridoux, F.M., Stofberg, N., & Den Hartog, D. (2016). Stakeholders’ responses to CSR tradeoffs: When other-orientation and trust trump material self-interest. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:1992.

Bridoux, F.M. & Vishwanathan, P. (2020). When do powerful stakeholders give managers the latitude to balance all stakeholders’ interests? Business and Society, 59, 232-262.

Harrison, J. S., Barney, J. B., Freeman, R. E., & Phillips, R. A. (Eds.). (2019). The Cambridge Handbook of Stakeholder Theory. Cambridge University Press.

Harrison, J. S., & Wicks, A. C. (2013). Stakeholder theory, value, and firm performance. Business Ethics Quarterly, 97-124.

Jones, T. M., Felps, W., & Bigley, G. A. (2007). Ethical theory and stakeholder-related decisions: The role of stakeholder culture. Academy of Management Review, 32(1), 137-155.

Klein, P.G., Mahoney, J.T., McGahan, A.M. and Pitelis, C.N. (2019). Organizational governance adaptation: Who is in, who is out, and who gets what. Academy of Management Review, 44(1): 6-27.

van Dijke, M.H. (2020). Power and leadership. Current Opinion in Psychology, 33, 6-11.

ERIM offers fully-funded and salaried PhD positions, which means that accepted PhD candidates become employees (promovendi) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO) .

For questions regarding the PhD application and selection procedure, please check the Admissions or send us an e-mail via [email protected] .

ERIM is the research institute of management at Erasmus University Rotterdam, founded by Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), both of which excel in their research and teaching programmes. The level and international character of their research and teaching programmes has put both schools at the forefront of academic excellence. They offer a diversified portfolio of accredited teaching and research programmes, ranging from pre-experience MSc to postgraduate Masters and executive development, and from fundamental research to applied research and business support, which are renowned throughout the world. RSM is one of the few schools worldwide that holds a triple accreditation from the AMBAs, EQUIS and the AASCB, and is positioned among the top European business schools. The scientific staff of both schools plays a major role in the schools’ interaction with the international business community.

ERIM distinguishes itself by the high-level and international character of its research and has repeatedly been ranked among top 3 research institutes in Europe. ERIM’s key aims are top-quality academic research with impact both on academia and managerial practice, and the advancement of international academic careers and high-level support for both research and doctoral education. For more information about ERIM please visit [link:https://www.erim.eur.nl].