Research
Research
Park, E., Lange, D., & Jeon, C. (2025). How shareholder litigation risk influences firm orientation toward stakeholders. Strategic Management Journal, 46(5): 1149-1182. LINK
Abstract: This study examines whether U.S. corporate executives would adopt a stronger stakeholder orientation if constraints imposed by shareholder litigation risk were relaxed. Leveraging the staggered adoption of Universal Demand (UD) laws across states as a quasi-experimental setting, we test whether reduced litigation risk leads to managers prioritizing broader stakeholder initiatives. We find that firms increase stakeholder-focused efforts following UD law adoption, with this shift more pronounced in firms with weaker shareholder governance provisions and lower levels of outside director ownership. Our study advances corporate governance and stakeholder theory by demonstrating how shareholder litigation risk acts as a governance mechanism that shapes managerial priorities. Additionally, we identify key boundary conditions moderating the relationship between governance constraints and stakeholder engagement.
Lange, D., Bundy, J., & Park, E. (2022). The social nature of stakeholder utility. Academy of Management Review, 47(1): 9-30. LINK
Abstract: For better or for worse, one stakeholder’s utility derives in part from their perceptions of how other stakeholders are being treated by the business. Yet, to date, the stakeholder literature has not explained well what stakeholders are actually looking for in a business’s treatment of other stakeholders. We allow for and help explain an emerging view in the literature whereby stakeholders might be looking out for each other’s interests, but we round out that view by also allowing for and explaining a different kind of possibility, whereby stakeholders disapprove of the favorable treatment of others or approve of their unfavorable treatment. Our model details how the other stakeholder serves three different roles with respect to the focal stakeholder’s utility: (a) as a symbolic representation of the values the business prioritizes—especially compared to the focal stakeholder’s own worldview, (b) as a referent for interpersonal equity comparisons, and (c) as either a perceived competitor for or facilitator of resources. We describe these three roles and then show how they interrelate in a process model. In doing so, we provide a more detailed and complete understanding of stakeholder utility than currently exists in the literature.