The stakeholder view of the firm has been justified under instrumental and normative bases. Whereas the instrumental basis argues that "enlightened stakeholder management" is a necessary precondition to seek shareholders' value maximization, the normative basis relies on the observance of ethical norms by managers and the notion that the stakeholders should be treated as "ends." Some scholars argue that both views actually converge. However, this article provides empirical evidence of the negative effects of stakeholder management in shareholders' value in the short run and the positive effects over the long run, using a longitudinal database of 658 U. S. firms. Given the difficulties of anticipating the instrumental long-term financial effects of short-run decisions affecting the different stakeholders, the authors' findings support the view of the normative basis for stakeholder theory based on ethics, norms, and heuristic criteria as a way to solve conflicts among the claims of different stakeholders.

We show that evaluating the sustained competitive advantage (SCA) of a firm according exclusively to superior economic performance sustained for a given period of time hides, in fact, alternative manifestations of SCA. We suggest that SCA is a multidimensional construct that may be subject to different, complementary operationalizations in empirical tests. We propose an untapped dimension of SCA related to the degree of autonomy of a firm relative to its industry rivals and present a new measure, inspired in the CAPM (capital asset pricing model), to capture it. This measure reflects the resilience of a firm against economic recessions and industry turmoil. We show the benefits of the proposed alternative measure of SCA based on firm autonomy through its application to the position of Southwest Airlines in relation to the US airline industry (1982-2003).

We propose a holistic managerial decision making framework that requires managers to take into consideration the three impact dimensions of any decision involving interactions with stakeholders, internal or external. The impact dimensions are a) effectiveness b) operative learning and c) relational learning. We posit that holistic decision making is a managerial competence. We submit that an organization whose managers systematically take into consideration these three impact dimensions in their decision making is more likely to achieve superior long term performance. We discuss the implications for researchers, practitioners and educators of our framework