Who matters to UK and German firms? Modelling stakeholder salience through corporate social reports

Abstract

Drawing from a longitudinal study of stakeholder salience in the UK and Germany, using data from corporate social reports and relying on the varieties of capitalism theoretical framework, we found that investors and employees came top on UK list while collaborative networks (including suppliers and alliances) and management were top on German list of important stakeholders. This finding suggests that stakeholder salience, to a large extent, reflects dominant characteristics of UK and Germany capitalist systems, respectively and gives further credence to the embedded nature argument of corporate stake-holding practices