Empirically Based Response Strategies: When and How Empirical Debate Allows Firms to Resist Stakeholders

While stakeholder support is essential for firm survival, when stakeholder pressures are at odds with firm interests, resistance becomes imperative for the firm. We theorize when and how empirically based responses enable firms to effectively resist stakeholders, without losing critical support, by following societal norms encouraging empirical debate. Extending arguments that stakeholder pressure progresses through phases, we argue that empirical debate is most influential before and after the phase when stakeholder deliberation occurs—that is, in the preceding phase, when issues are defined, and the subsequent phase, when remedies are debated. We detail two empirically based response strategies: (1) validity disputing and (2) validity promoting. While validity disputing sows doubt and uncertainty on the empirical elements of issues and remedies, validity promoting advances the empirical merits of the firm’s preferred remedy relative to stakeholders’ proposed remedy. Together, these strategies seek to mitigate stakeholder pressures by disrupting an issue’s rise to salience, and, failing that, to avoid remedies constituting more substantive concessions. We complete our model by examining three contingencies: firm dependence on stakeholders, causal complexity, and the strength of stakeholders’ values. Detailing empirical debate as a basis of response complements well-established, values-based approaches to address stakeholder pressures.