Why does context really matter? Understanding companies’ dialogue with fringe communities

Abstract

Although scholars have studied stakeholder dialogue, we lack studies that understand the effect of context on the structure and form of dialogue. To address this gap, in this research we focus on local rural communities that can be classified as fringe stakeholders to develop a comprehensive model of “fringe community dialogue”. As these neglected groups have been marginalized from society and face grave serious socio-environmental issues, we argue that these characteristics will affect the way dialogue occurs. Therefore, we posit that these instances need to be tailored to this specific stakeholder. To assess this, we follow a theory-building grounded theory approach, and as field of research we extract information from three different research sites. Findings indicate that, because of the characteristics of fringe communities, dialogues must follow three sequential dimensions, which are connected by two enabling mechanisms. We contribute by evincing that, because of this stakeholder’s characteristics, the dialogue process has a particular structure and key variables, differing from what the past literature asserts.