Stakeholder value in corporate sustainability: an extension of prospect theory to stakeholder management

• Ano de defesa: 2025
• Autor(a) principal: Pennabel, Adriana Fiorani
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Prospect theory; Corporate sustainability; Julgamento do stakeholder; Ponto de referência; Reference point; Stakeholder judgement; Stakeholder theory; Stakeholder value; Sustentabilidade corporativa; Teoria do stakeholder; Valor para o stakeholder
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/96/96132/tde-25112025-093947/

Growing pressure from various stakeholders has driven companies to integrate corporate sustainability into their strategies, transcending the mere environmental dimension to a holistic view that encompasses economic, social, and environmental aspects. In this context, creating value for stakeholders emerges as a central theme. However, there remains a lack of a clear, indepth understanding of how stakeholders judge the corporate strategies that affect them. Although the literature offers a vast body of research on the topic, studies do not address stakeholder value from the perspective of corporate sustainability perception, instead relying on secondary or implicit approaches. Based on the assumption that stakeholder value involves an individual and subjective judgment by stakeholders about the utility experienced as a result of a corporate decision and that this judgment consists of a reference point (RP), a parameter from which individuals judge, choose, or make decisions, this research aims to investigate the relationship between corporate sustainability and the way stakeholders judge this organization\'s strategy from the RP analysis. By applying prospect theory to the study of stakeholders\' judgments of the value of corporate sustainability, this study seeks to delve deeper into the judgment process from the perspective of RP. Despite being a central theme in prospect theory, RP is rarely addressed in management, and its formation and/or change process remains poorly explored. To this end, a systematic literature review (SLR) of 155 articles was conducted, followed by an experiment with 230 customers of a Brazilian electricity company. Initially, the SLR identified four critical factors that shape PR: social, experiential, informational, and attributed processes. Next, the between-subjects experiment examined the influence of the critical factors on stakeholders\' judgments of value regarding corporate sustainability. According to the empirical results, only two of the critical factors were confirmed - experiential and informational processes. The theoretical contributions include broadening the discussion of stakeholder value from a new perspective, especially in the context of corporate sustainability, and expanding the application of prospect theory in management, advancing the theme of RP shaping. Additionally, managerial and social contributions are offered, as the results provide insights for companies to align their sustainability strategies with stakeholder expectations, optimize engagement and value creation, and disseminate the importance of sustainable best practices.