Abstract
Back when protesters were targeting the company, the Gap realized that it needed to overhaul the way it interacted with its critics. So the company launched a strategy of stakeholder engagement.
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Notes
- 1.
D. McDougall, “African dream turns sour for orphan army,” The Sunday Times, 2nd August 2009; S. MacVicar, “Jean Factor Toxic Waste Plagues Lesotho,” CBS Evening News, 2nd August 2009; http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/02/eveningnews/main5205416.shtml (accessed 28 August 2010).
- 2.
For example, Gap was recognized as one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” in the 2010 Ethisphere ranking (across 35 industries there were 99 total companies and only 9 retailers on this list); Gap was ranked number 11 overall and number 3 on human rights in Corporate Responsibility (CR) magazine’s “100 Best Corporate Citizens 2011” (out of 1,000 companies evaluated).
- 3.
“The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits,” The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970.
- 4.
For further discussion of the risks of insufficient attention to stakeholders see: N. C. Smith, M. E. Drumwright and M. C. Gentile, “The New Marketing Myopia,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 29, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 4–11.
- 5.
R. E. Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pitman, 1984): 53. For an updated account, see R. E. Freeman, J. S. Harrison and A. C. Wicks, Managing for Stakeholders: Survival, Reputation and Success (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2007).
- 6.
See T. Donaldson and L. Preston, “The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications,” Academy of Management Review, 20, no. 1 (1995): 65–91; R. Edward Freeman, J. S. Harrison, A. C. Wicks, B. L. Parmar, and S. de Colle, Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
- 7.
P. Kenyon, “Gap and Nike: No Sweat (TV report transcript),” BBC, 15th October 2000. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/970385.stm (accessed: 27 August 2010); Associated Press, “Cambodia Rejects BBC Documentary’s Allegations,” Associated Press, 4th October 2000.
- 8.
R. K. Mitchell, B. R. Agle and D. J. Wood, “Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts,” Academy of Management Review 22, no. 4 (1997): 853–886.
- 9.
This model, originally developed by pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, is described more fully in S. Zadek, “The Path to Corporate Responsibility,” Harvard Business Review 82, no. 12 (December 2004): 125–132.
- 10.
S. English, “Gap Admits to Running Sweatshops,” Daily Telegraph, 13th May 2004. See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3340068/Gap-admits-to-running-sweatshops.html (accessed: 27th August 2010). Gap social responsibility reports are available at: http://www.gapinc.com/GapIncSubSites/csr/EmbracingOurResponsibility/ER_Our_History.shtml (accessed 28th August 2010).
- 11.
For a fuller discussion of this issue of upstream (supply chain) consequences of downstream marketer (and consumer) decisions, see N. C. Smith, G. Palazzo and C.B. Bhattacharya, “Marketing’s Consequences: Stakeholder Marketing and Supply Chain Corporate Social Responsibility Issues,” Business Ethics Quarterly 20, no. 4 (October 2010): 617–641.
- 12.
Dan McDougall, “Child Sweatshop Shame Threatens Gap’s Ethical Image,” The Observer, 28th October 2007.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the research participation of Gap Inc. management and representatives of its key external stakeholders as well as research support from Dreyfus Sons and Co. Ltd., Banquiers.
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Smith, N.C., Ansett, S., Erez, L. (2019). How GAP Engaged with Its Stakeholders. In: Lenssen, G.G., Smith, N.C. (eds) Managing Sustainable Business. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1144-7_11
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