Sustainability, stakeholders, and company crisis: A structured analysis of perceptions

Abstract

Reality reveals that a company’s stakeholders used to have different and conflicting interests. However, in the face of a crisis, it is expected that they will be given appropriate importance in terms of solving their immediate difficulties. The present work proposes to evaluate the degree of impartiality in the importance perception of various stakeholders about what they claim and affirm. For this purpose, the concepts of influence, interest, legitimacy, and urgency are tested in an organizational crisis scenario. The study consists of the evaluation of a real case that occurred in Colombia, through a multiple correspondence analysis applied to the perceptions of several professionals of different nationalities, in their stage of managerial education. Based on obtained results, the study identifies a contradictory behavior in such professional’s perceptions. It is concluded, therefore, that these findings can represent both pedagogical and managerial challenges, since there are specific biases found regarding the relative importance that each stakeholder should have in the context studied.