Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B., & Rahman, S. S. (Eds.). 2002. Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking: Theory, Responsibility and Engagement. (Vol. 1). Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing.

Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B., & Rahman, S. S. (Eds.). 2003. Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking: Relationships, Communication, Reporting and Performance. (Vol. 2). Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing.

These companion volumes are interesting for their blend of European and American perspectives, and their mix of theoretical and practitioner-oriented articles.

Svendsen, A. 1998. The Stakeholder Strategy: Profiting from Collaborative Business Relationships. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

A practical approach to building stakeholder relationships is detailed with many case studies and tools for managing a socially responsible firm.

Carroll, A. B. 1979. A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4): 497-505.

Archie Carroll’s seminal article in AMR and his subsequent work remain hugely influential for business and society scholars. This paper reflects an American view of CSR.

Wood, D. J. 1991. Corporate Social Performance Revisited. Academy of Management Review, 16(4): 691-718.

A good theoretical overview of social performance and its components, this article has launched many articles and dissertations in the years since it was published. A foundation article for anyone researching this field.

Swanson, D. L. 1999. Toward an Integrative Theory of Business and Society: A Research Strategy for Corporate Social Performance. Academy of Management Review, 24(3): 506-521.

Diane Swanson put the soul back into corporate social responsiveness by showing in this theoretical article how values drive decision-making in socially responsible organisations.

Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. A. 1996. Organizational Identity and Strategy as a Context for the Individual. Advances in Strategic Management, 13: 19-64.

Organisational identity provides a context for corporate strategy and also a form of unobtrusive social control. Organisations need to know who they are so they can figure out where they are going and get their employees to come on the journey.

Hatch, M. J., & Schultz, M. 2002. The Dynamics of Organizational Identity. Human Relations, 55(8): 989-1018.

Hatch and Schultz are two of the greatest ‘mavens’ in the fields of organisational identity and culture. In this article they describe how internal and external definitions of organisational identity interact. Internal cultural expressions and understandings of “who we are” are in dynamic and continuous interaction with images reflected by external stakeholders. In this way, an “organisation’s self is continually socially constructed … by all organisational stakeholders who join in the dance” (p. 1004). Organisations need to understand how their stakeholders can influence their identity so that they can manage a healthy and effective organisational culture.

Whetten, D. A., & Godfrey, P. C. 1998. Identity in Organizations: Building Theory Through Conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

This book brings together contemporary thought leaders in organisational identity to understand what is organisational identity, why do people identify with the organisations they belong to, and what does this mean for organisational strategy?

Husted, B. W., & Allen, D. B. 2000. Is It Ethical to Use Ethics as Strategy? Journal of Business Ethics, 27: 21-31.

Husted and Allen ask what it means to understand corporate strategy within a framework that includes social responsibility and ethics. They review the ethics of social strategies such as corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship and strategic philanthropy and argue that the pursuit of social strategies is ethical and legitimate, because they increase overall social welfare.

Weaver, G. R., & Trevino, L. K. 1999. Compliance and Values Oriented Ethics Programs: Influences on Employees Attitudes and Behaviour. Business Ethics Quarterly, 9(2): 315-335.

Weaver and Trevino are among the leading empirical researchers in business ethics today. In this study, they report that while both compliance and values orientations are important, values oriented ethics programs make a bigger contribution to outcomes such as employee attitudes and behaviour.

Ansoff, H. I. 1980. Strategic Issue Management. Strategic Management Journal, 1: 131-148.

Ansoff was one of the first to provide a systematic approach to issues management. Still relevant for today’s issues managers.

Fleisher, C. S. 2003. The Trade-Offs in Developing Public Affairs Metrics. Journal of Public Affairs, 3(2): 176-185.

Fleisher is perhaps the leading contemporary scholar on measurement issues in public affairs. In this article he discusses the characteristics of an effective measurement system.

Meznar, M. B., & Johnson, J. H. 1996. Multinational Operations and Stakeholder Management: Public Affairs Strategies, and Economic Performance. Journal of International Management, 2(4): 233-261.

Yes, public affairs does make a contribution to economic performance. This article describes the public affairs strategies that affect performance.

Bruning, S. D., & Ledingham, J. A. 1999. Relationships Between Organizations and Publics: Development of a Multi-Dimensional Organization-Public Relationship Scale. Public Relations Review, 25(2): 157-170.

Bruning and Ledingham have tested their measure of the quality of organisation-stakeholder relationships in a variety of settings such as banks and telephone companies. They put numbers on what makes intuitive sense; that good stakeholder relationships lead to greater stakeholder loyalty.