University of Hamburg, Germany

Investors pushing for sustainability: How firms assess the urgency of stakeholder requests

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Abstract

Urgency, along with power and legitimacy, is one of the key determinants of stakeholder salience and is at the core of the question when and how firms respond to stakeholder requests. Despite its central role in stakeholder theory, urgency and its effects on firms’ responses are poorly understood. In the context of sustainable investing, we study how firms evaluate the urgency of investors’ ESG requests and how their assessment affects their responses. We conduct interviews with firms which show that firms perceive and respond differently to different levels of urgency. We contribute to stakeholder theory by being the first study that analyzes urgency, the role of its underlying attributes and their relationship to another. In addition, we contribute to the literature on the impact of sustainable investing by showing that investors need to put their key resources (i.e., money) behind their ESG requests, to convince firms to do the same.

Biography

Anne Kellers is a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg, researcher at the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth at the University of Zurich and a fellow at the Wharton School. Her research focuses on the barriers to impact of sustainable investments in public capital markets. Currently, she works on projects focusing on investor activism, asset managers’ ESG investment criteria, and high-net-worth investors investment dynamics. Prior to starting her PhD, she graduated from the University of Cambridge, worked as an auditor for the FNG label which certifies sustainable investment funds and completed a two-years rotation program at a private bank.