STAKEHOLDER SATISFACTION AND SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS

The relationship between Stakeholder Satisfaction and Organizational Sustainable Growth and Success is investigated focusing on the importance of a firm’s relationships with critical stakeholders that may lead to better performance, as organizations while integrating business and societal considerations create value for their stakeholders. Framed on Stakeholder Theory an online survey was administered to Managers of Portuguese organizations with certified management systems by APCER. The findings suggest that Competitive position is strongly correlated with Shareholders, Suppliers and Partners, Employees and Customers satisfaction, legitimating Freemans Stakeholder Theory. In an overall final remark, the importance of Shareholders, Partners/Suppliers, Employees and Customers satisfaction for organisational Sustainable Success is highlighted in this study results.


INTRODUCTION
The issue of whether there is a link between Corporate Social Performance/Stakeholder Satisfaction and Corporate Financial Performance/Organizational Sustained Success remains the most controversial area in the business-in-society field (Barnett, 2007).
In recent years Corporate Social Responsibility has become a relevant concept that frames the business contributions to sustainability (Commission of the European Communities, 2002).Although there is no consensus concerning the concept of CSR (nature, motivations, impacts) and the results of the research, literature review allow us to conclude that most definitions take into consideration a economical, social and environmental dimensions (Hediger, 2006).
Scholars within the neoclassical economics tradition argued theoretically that Corporate Social Responsibility strategies unnecessarily increase firm's costs therefore creating a competitive disadvantage compared to competitors( (most notably Friedman, 1970).
However, many other scholars have argued that companies that satisfy the expectations of their stakeholders have higher economic benefits than competitors and achieve positive differentiation (Hilman andKeim, 2001, Berrone, Surroca andTribó, 2007) In this work, we try to investigate if Stakeholder Satisfaction can contribute to the sustained growth and success of Organizations (ability to achieve and maintain their objectives in the long term), by consistently meeting the needs and expectations of the interested parties, in a balanced way, over the long term (ISO 9004:2009).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984) is the main theory supporting the business case for the Satisfaction of the Organizations Stakeholders by focusing on the importance of a firm's relationships with critical stakeholders that may lead to better performance, as organizations that integrate

CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND RESEARCH HYPOTESES
Building on literature and managerial contribution, the following Conceptual Model and Research Hypotheses have been proposed to be empirically tested:

INSTRUMENT
A self-administered on line questionnaire was used (Lime Survey).Following literature review and managerial contributions an exploratory study was performed with key Quality, Environmental and Safety and Sustainability Managers.A pre test of the questionnaire was made and the respondents were contacted by email to fulfil the final questionnaire via web.

RESULTS
Stakeholder Satisfaction is the independent variable (with 6 dimensions, v1 to v6) and Sustainable Success s the dependent one, composed with 8 dimensions (v7 to v14).All variables were measured with a 1 to 7 Likert scale and construct reliability was tested with Cronbach Alpha.

DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
As is illustrated in

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL CONTRIBUTIONS
In this work we find evidence that according to a large number of Portuguese managers that belong to organizations with a certified management system, stakeholder satisfaction is relevant for the organizational sustainable success.as suggested by Freeman (1984) Stakeholder theory.This work also has relevant contributions for management practice highlighting the importance of Shareholders, Employees and Partners/Suppliers satisfaction for Sustainable Success.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK
One of the research limitations of this works is that the respondents were Managers from organizations with a certified management system from APCER and the analysis is based on their perceptions.Additional research should extend this study to certified organizations by other Certification Bodies and also with non certified organizations.In addition it might be useful to replicate the study with Managers from other countries.