Sustainable strategy and corporate governance

For any organization, a good and sustainable strategy is critical to achieve superior performance for its stakeholders. These strategies may concern strategic alliances or mergers, strategic changes, diversification, and the use of digitalization to implement new business models. A variety of firm stakeholders evaluate the quality of these strategic decisions. Their outcomes have to be in line with expectation of shareholders in long-term performance developments, expectations of employees in job-security, and expectations of the society in equality and the fulfillment of social and environmental norms. To facilitate such strategies, a suitable firm-level corporate governance is needed. A firm’s corporate governance and stakeholder management are critical to consider stakeholders’ interests in the strategic decision making, to ensure organizational support for the new strategy, and to achieve effective strategy implementation. A firm’s corporate governance encompasses the selection and composition of top management team, the design of compensation arrangements, as well as the  diversity, expertise and power of corporate boards.

This research profile investigates the relationships among strategic decision-making processes, their antecedents and context, and their consequences for a broad array of stakeholders. Our researchers focus on the organizational mechanisms that are used to manage interdependencies among a firm’s internal actors and multiple external stakeholders in the firm’s strategic decisions, in such a way that the firm avoids corporate misconduct and scandals. Research projects focus on topics such as:

• The influence of corporate boards on strategic decision making
• Alignment of manager and stakeholder interests
• Performance effects of boards’ and CEOs’ behavior