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Managing Disputes With Nonmarket Stakeholders: Wage A Fight, Wait, Withdraw, Or Work It Out?", Anne T. Lawrence

Anne T. Lawrence

How do managers respond when confronted with the demands of activist stakeholders over whom they exercise no direct control? What strategies do managers adopt, and why? Which of these are most effective—and under what conditions? Increasingly, businesses today face difficult challenges in response to changing public expectations and newly emergent techniques of stakeholder influence. New communications technologies enable activists concerned about business behavior to mobilize supporters around the world in real time. Many firms conduct their work on a global stage, where damage to reputation in one location can quickly reverberate around the world. This article develops a typology of …