The Role of Stakeholder Sentiment in Strategic Decision-Making: a Behavioral Perspective

Digitalization provides decision makers with extensive opportunities to understand and interact with their firms' various stakeholder groups. Data analytics technologies enable firms to continuously monitor their stakeholders' goals, preferences, and satisfaction, thereby offering opportunities to integrate these expectations into firms' decision-making processes. On the basis of a large-scale sentiment analysis project, this dissertation proposes a new theoretical construct, stakeholder sentiment, which reflects stakeholders' diverse expectations. The three comprised studies explore the role of this construct in the context of performance feedback theory, capital allocation decisions, and organizational reputation. The dissertation contributes to the behavioral theory of the firm and related organizational theories as well as to stakeholder theory. In doing so, it demonstrates the continued relevance of these formative theories in explaining strategic decisions in the digital age.