Involving, countering, and overlooking stakeholder networks in soft regulation: Case study of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise’s implementation of SA8000

Manal El Abboubi, Ashly H. Pinnington, Stewart Clegg, Katerina Nicolopoulou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

To achieve effective stakeholder governance in the context of international social accountability certification (SA8000) requires constructing a network of agreement. In a case study of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise (SME), we examine managers’ attempts at enrolling participants in the supply chain to investigate how they strive to engage these stakeholders. We adopt actor-network theory (ANT) and sensemaking theory to develop a novel approach to understanding social accountability (SA) standards’ certification in stakeholder networks. We argue that the design and operation of any SA standard across a network requires not only attempts at enrolling other participants in the supply chain but management contextualizing and problematizing the terms of their involvement.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1594-1630
JournalBusiness and Society
Volume61
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2022

Keywords

  • actor network theory
  • sensemaking
  • small business
  • social accountability standards
  • stakeholder management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Involving, countering, and overlooking stakeholder networks in soft regulation: Case study of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise’s implementation of SA8000'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this