Assessing stakeholders’ perception influence on companies’ profitability: evidence from Italian companies

The stakeholders’ view represents one of the key dimensions that affect companies’ performance, directly impacting the managerial decision-making process. However, despite many theoretical studies that suppose the relevant role covered by the stakeholders’ perception in the value creation process of organizations, no empirical evidence on whether and how it affects companies’ profitability has been produced. In this context, by focussing on a sample of 141 firm-year observations over the period 2017–2019, this paper uses a linear regression model to investigate and fill this gap. Findings significantly show that a high stakeholders’ perception score (SPS) increases firms’ profitability, providing insights that implementing a strategy oriented to stakeholders’ engagement affects a company’s economic performance. It is suggested that practitioners integrate stakeholders’ perception into performance management system (PMS) processes to achieve economically and environmentally-oriented performance.