Measuring Stakeholder Theory Mindsets: Development and Validation of a Measurement Scale

For four decades, stakeholder theory has played a key role in many research fields, from strategy to business ethics. More recent developments in the field of behavioral stakeholder theory highlight the importance of individual managers and their mindsets. The role of stakeholder theory mindsets of managers, however, has not been empirically investigated. Despite the prominence of stakeholder theory in management research, no measurement scale exists at the level of individuals that would allow scholars to assess the degree to which a manager agrees with the key assumptions of stakeholder theory. This research develops a scale to measure managers’ stakeholder theory mindsets. To do so, we followed scholarly best practices: First, we generated items based on existing stakeholder theory literature and then had expert stakeholder scholars evaluate them. This step was followed by two independent studies for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and a nomological network study. The actual scale development was complemented by an additional study, which tests the predictive power of the stakeholder theory mindset scale and demonstrates its incremental validity. As a result, we propose a validated measurement scale of stakeholder theory mindsets, consisting of 18 items that load on four factors corresponding to the four main assumptions in stakeholder theory: value creation, the integration thesis, jointness of stakeholder interests, and the responsibility principle. We draw out how future research can be inspired by using this scale, which inter alia allows testing antecedents of stakeholder theory mindsets, as well as consequences for managerial decision-making.