The Role Of Corporate Vision In Stakeholder Management: Concept,Mechanism,and Effectiveness

Corporate vision refers to the ultimate goal and the ideal state of the company,which describes a vivid picture for firm's future development.Scholars from organizational behavior research areas and strategic research areas have done a lot in the impact of corporate vision on business development.Existing research mainly regarded corporate vision as a part of corporate strategy system,and examed the leading role and the influence of vision on corporate performance.Some other studies also discussed the impact of vision on employee behavior from the internal perspective.However,there lacks researches to look into the affect of vision on corporate development from an external perspective.In fact,during the development of enterprises,the support of stakeholders from internal and external of the company are very important for it can help firms to obtain external resources.Then,whether corporate vision can promote the support of stakeholders to the enterprise?What is role of corporate vision in stakeholoder management and how it works?In this paper,we will look into the concept,mechanism,and effectiveness of the impact of corprate vision on stakeholder management.A narrative literature review was included in the first part of this dissertation.It consisted of two major parts.Part one outlined the definition,content and element of vision,as well as the affect of vision on coporate development.Part two reviewed the theoretical backgroud of this research,including stakeholder theory,psychological contract theory and mental imagary theory.Based on this literature review,several theoretical voids were disuccsed and the main research questions of this dissertation were also identifiedFour studies were conducted to systematically investigate the affect of corporate vision on stakeholder management.The first study conducted a content analysis to the vision of the 500 Top Enterprises of China.Based on the stakeholder management perspective,we found that:1)Over 80%of the coporate visions responded to the expectations of the widely stakeholders expectations,including the country and the people of China,on enterprises' enlarging and strengthening;2)Almost half of the coporate visions responded to the expectations of the government by conforming to the government's goals and strategies;3)Approximately 30%of the coporate visions responded to the expectations of consumers;4)More than 20%of the coporate visions responded to the expectations of employees;5)About 18%of the coporate visions responded to the expectations of the community;6)And there is also a few coporate visions responded to the expectations of shareholders and partners.In addition,this study also found that different enterprises have different chioces when responding to stakeholders expectations.The second study and the third study explored the impact of corporate vision on stakeholders.The two studies find that:(1)Vision's focus on stakeholder expectations can promote stakeholder organizational identification or brand identification,in which psychological contract play an mediating role in this relationship;(2)In addition,we also found that the perceived imagery of corporate vision by the stakeholders also has a significant positive effect on stakeholder organizational identification or brand identification,in which mental imagery plays a mediating role in the relationship.The fourth study explores the impact of corporate vision on corporate performance from a stakeholder perspective.This study finds that the concern of stakeholders'expectations in vision statement have a significant positive effect on corporate financial performance.And the respond to consumer or employee expectations in vision statement can also promote corporate financial performance.Finally,the main findings of this dissertation were concluded and the contribution and implication,limitations and future research directions were discussed as well.