While most studies on stakeholder engagement focus on high‐power stakeholders (typically, employees), limited attention has been devoted to the engagement of low‐power stakeholders. These have been defined as vulnerable stakeholders for their low capacity to influence corporations. Our research is framed around the engagement of low‐power stakeholders in the coffee industry who are, paradoxically, critical resource providers for the major roasters. Through the case study of Lavazza—the leading Italian roaster—we investigate empowerment actions addressed to smallholder farmers located in Brazil, India, East Africa, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. We contribute to the theoretical discussion around engagement and empowerment by developing a framework linking together areas of empowerment (defined in the literature) and specific empowerment actions (emerging from our interviews). Our insights shed light on how organizations can design empowerment strategies leading to more effective stakeholder engagement and how empowerment actions can contribute to turn low‐power stakeholders into active business partners. We demonstrate that moving from a traditional competitive view of corporate–stakeholder relationships to a stakeholder theory view based on a logic of cooperative partnerships reinforces the idea that stakeholder engagement and empowerment are both entangled with the value creation process.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been traditionally interpreted as the sum of practices, policies, and strategies linked with social and environmental benefits that corporations implement to serve multiple stakeholders’ interests simultaneously. The evolution of meanings and implications of traditional and contemporary interpretations of CSR, focuses on integrated CSR as a breakthrough approach to business, society, and environment. Several theories and trends that integrated CSR is rooted in are: stakeholder theory, ethics, value creation, and the increasing global call for sustainable growth and development, under both financial and ethical perspectives. Selected case studies will serve as empirical evidence of processes, practices, and strategic tools that can allow the integration of CSR into the company core business and will open avenues for further discussions and practical innovative developments in CSR strategy to both academics and practitioners.

The intensifying debate about stakeholder-oriented relational approaches replacing a pure economic-based perspective has contributed to new stakeholder thinking based on cooperative relationships and mutual and shared responsibilities. In this paper, we provide a new configuration of stakeholder relationships and responsibilities by first discussing three main antecedents of such a differentiated perspective: (a) the failure of the separation thesis; (b) the importance of stakeholder continuous engagement and joint value creation; and (c) the key role of creative imagination. Second, we use these antecedents to illustrate a multi-stakeholder value map that sheds light on the centrality of all stakeholders in a joint value creation emergent process. We posit that adopting such an approach might increase the value creation for all actors, whether directly or indirectly involved in specific multistakeholder alliances, and benefit the firm, the industry and the society from a larger perspective beyond one that is merely economic-based.

This study examines the empowerment of low-power, vulnerable stakeholders of global, complex supply chains as one effective strategy to increase value co-creation and to moderate the vulnerabilities that threaten supply chain resilience. Previous scholars have indicated the necessity of investigating the concept of value co-creation further by including various stakeholder perspectives and suggesting systems of evaluation. This research thus focuses on low-power smallholder farmers within the coffee supply chain by qualitatively evaluating the effectiveness of value co-creation projects. The study also analyzes the extent of development and the nature of empowerment initiatives designed conjointly by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and coffee roasters that are addressed to farmers. The mixed qualitative methodology includes a literature review, interviews, focus groups, and content analysis of 20 value co-creation projects conducted in various developing and emerging coffee-producing countries. The research proposes a theoretical framework employed to conduct focus groups with Brazilian coffee farmers. This framework empirically demonstrates that these farmers are in the process of becoming business partners of the coffee supply chain thanks to various empowerment initiatives, common to most of the analyzed projects, that appear to moderate specific vulnerabilities of the coffee supply chain and therefore benefit supply chain resilience.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to link empowerment to the engagement of low-power stakeholders in the context of marine protected areas (MPAs) to suggest how empowerment-based engagement can be strategised to prevent and overcome management crises within a natural common good and ultimately achieve effective co-management. Design/methodology/approach: This research employs a longitudinal case study methodology. The subject of the study is Torre Guaceto MPA, a natural common good, internationally recognised as a best practice of co-management. Findings: The case study illustrates specific empowerment areas and actions that help move low-power stakeholders to higher levels of engagement to achieve effective co-management. It also suggests that the main strategic implication of empowerment-based engagement is the creation of empowered stakeholders who can serve as catalysts for sustaining the common through the development of entrepreneurial skills that satisfy joint interests. Research limitations/implications: The applied methodology of a single case and the peculiar conditions intrinsic to this case can be overcome via the inclusion and comparison of other similar commons. Practical implications: The study provides a stakeholder management model of empowerment-based engagement that offers concrete evidence of empowerment strategies that can be adopted and adapted by the management of similar natural common goods. Originality/value: The research fills the literature gaps related to understanding the antecedents of engagement and its strategic implications within natural common pool resources.