Publications

When it comes to managing the relationship with stakeholders in order to create value, there are many questions that remain unanswered. Previous studies have concluded that a company which invests more resources in its stakeholders to meet their legitimate demands and needs than strictly necessary may not always be rewarded with greater value creation when compared to other companies that do not invest to the same extent. Nonetheless, the instrumental stakeholder theory shows that overinvesting in stakeholders will increase business results since stakeholders will return what they have received from the company by adopting a positive attitude towards it. Given the inconclusive evidence, our paper attempts to provide an answer. In this sense, we argue and propose that only stakeholders with whom there is values congruence will disclose valuable knowledge to the company, thus enabling it to create value and obtain a competitive advantage. We test our proposal empirically by analyzing an express courier transport company and its relationship with stakeholders. The results obtained show that the affective commitment of stakeholders towards a company is essential for the latter to obtain private knowledge from them and hence create value.