The Rise and Stall of Stakeholder Influence: How the Digital Age Limits Social Control
基于认知理论，分析数字时代社交媒体虽使利益相关者更易发声，但信息过载反而限制了其对企业行为的整体影响力，并提出了修正框架。
Have stakeholders increased their influence over firm behavior in the digital age? We draw from cognitive theory to argue that although social media has made it easier for stakeholders to broadcast their demands, the methods used to cope with the drastic change in quantities and qualities of information in the digital age have limited stakeholder influence in the aggregate. Even secondary stakeholders now have the ability to engage mass audiences, but the likelihood of success of most stakeholders’ efforts to alter firm behavior has been constrained amid the torrent of information flows. We develop a revised framework that accounts for the cognitive mechanisms that buffer firm–stakeholder relationships from change and thereby limit the overall effects of the digital age on stakeholder influence over firm behavior.