Corporate Responsibilityon the Media Sector : Study on the Corporate Responsibility Perceptions of Alma Media’s Stakeholders

Despite the globally growing interest in corporate responsibility (CR), there is little practical as wellas academic knowledge of CR practises in the media sector. The aim of this study is to make acontribution to the evolving understanding of what CR implies in the media sector by applying astakeholder approach to a case study, which is Alma Media, a Finnish media corporation. Firstly,from the corporate perspective, the objective of this study is to provide Alma Media with a CRagenda, based on the CR priorities defined in stakeholder interviews. Secondly, from a moretheoretical point of view, this study aims to evaluate the stakeholder theory as a means of definingthe CR characteristics of the media sector in Finland.The main body of the primary data is collected by 44 stakeholder interviews, supportedby participant observation at the case company. The data is structured with content analysis andanalysed according to the stakeholder categorisation of Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) in order toprioritise between the different stakeholders and their CR interests.The findings indicate Alma Media’s CR priorities are a mix of media ethics (reliability,responsible journalism, journalistic integrity), traditional CR issues (environment, personnel) andcultural responsibility (locality, citizenship). Most stakeholder demands concerns environmentalresponsibility. To understand media CR on a general, global level, further research is needed toconfirm the findings of this study and, particularly, to highlight the international differences andsimilarities in media CR.Concerning the theoretical objective of the study, the study concludes that the Mitchell,Agle and Wood model helps to identify the priority stakeholders and CR issues but fails to capturethe multi-dimensional nature of the power attribute and the role of stakeholder networks in themanagement of CR. Thus, stakeholder theory provides valuable insight into CR management butfurther research on stakeholder network models is needed