A focus on company-stakeholder relationships in the light of the Stakeholder Engagement framework

This paper aims to investigate company-stakeholder relationships from a managerial and marketing perspective. The principal goal of the work is to identify possible drivers on which to act to improve opportunities for long-term and collaborative relationships between companies and stakeholders. Building on the contributions on the topic of relationships between companies and stakeholders, the paper proposes an explorative research study carried out to suggest how strategies and behaviours of a sample of Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are aligned with the global stakeholder engagement framework. Hypotheses are tested via a survey on a sample of Italian SMEs. Data are analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in order to identify possible relationships between companies’ Market Share (MS) and their capabilities in understanding stakeholder’s strong beliefs; the alignment of organisational models of companies and stakeholders; their attention to involve stakeholders in their plans and strategies; their availability to give information on their plans and strategies to stakeholders; the transparency of their communication; and the level of communication between companies and stakeholders. The results are discussed from a theoretical and practical point of view.