| Course | LDR 731 Contemporary Issues in Leadership (LDR/731) |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Doctoral stakeholder analysis |
| Length | about 1,165 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | DBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for LDR 731 Week 5
The Family, the Fund, the Furnace Town and the Customer: Stakeholder Theory and Balanced Value at a Global Glass Company
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
LDR/731: Contemporary Issues in Leadership
Week 5 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Maumee Glass Group, its stakeholders and the decision are composites written for a model paper.
Previous weeks examined how the top team of Maumee Glass Group, the invented Toledo specialty glass company, sets direction, deploys values, rewards performance and learns across plants. Now the team faces its hardest decision. The Fremont, Ohio, plant operates the company's oldest furnace, built in 1987, which needs a rebuild costing about $45 million within two years. The plant employs 410 people in a town of about 16,000, where it is the largest private employer and taxpayer. Analysts estimate that moving its production to an expanded Monterrey plant would cost $38 million and save about $9 million a year in labor and energy. The private equity investor favors the move. The founding family, which still lives in the region, is divided. Vice president of global operations Daniel Okafor has been asked to frame the decision for the board. This paper applies stakeholder theory.
Three Bases of Stakeholder Theory
Donaldson and Preston (1995) argued that stakeholder theory has three aspects. Descriptively, it describes how firms actually behave, managing relationships with many groups. Instrumentally, it proposes that attention to stakeholders contributes to performance. On the normative side, the theory says these groups have rightful claims that matter in themselves, apart from any payoff. They argued that the normative base is fundamental: firms should consider stakeholders because their interests have intrinsic value, not only because doing so pays.
The Evidence on Social and Financial Performance
Margolis and Walsh (2003) reviewed studies of the relationship between corporate social and financial performance. They found a small positive relationship on average but noted inconsistent methods and results and argued that the question of whether social initiatives pay was the wrong focus. They called for research on how firms can address social problems effectively, given that firms face tensions between economic and social objectives.
Whom CEOs See
Agle et al. (1999) studied chief executives' perceptions of stakeholders and found that stakeholders' power, legitimacy and urgency predicted their salience to executives. Chief executives' values also mattered: executives with other-regarding values gave more attention to some groups, such as employees and communities. Salience shaped which stakeholders received attention in decisions.
Mapping the Stakeholders
The family owners hold majority control and care about financial returns, the company's legacy and their community standing. The private equity investor holds a minority stake, a board seat and a planned exit in four years. Fremont employees face job loss; many are in their fifties with skills specific to glass. The town faces loss of jobs and tax revenue. Customers care about reliability and price; some value domestic supply. Monterrey employees and their community would gain jobs. The broader workforce will watch how the company treats Fremont.
Salience at Maumee
The salience research by Agle et al. (1999) suggests that the private equity investor is highly salient: powerful, legitimate and urgent given its timeline. Fremont employees and the town are legitimate and urgent but have little power. The new chief executive's consumer-industry background and short tenure may make the community less salient to her than to the family.
What Fremont Employees and Officials Said
Meetings with employee representatives and the town's mayor revealed deep concern and some ideas. Employees offered to help redesign work to cut costs, as they had during the 2009 downturn. The mayor described a state program that could fund part of a furnace rebuild in exchange for job commitments. A large automotive customer told Maumee's sales team that it valued having a domestic supplier for certain specialty glass. These conversations surfaced options the financial analysis had not considered.
Customers and Supply Risk
Concentrating production in Monterrey would leave the company dependent on one country for most of its North American supply, exposing it to tariffs, border delays and regional disruptions. Several customers have asked suppliers to show resilient supply chains. Keeping some capacity in Ohio has value that the savings estimate does not capture.
The Financial Case
On financial terms, the move pays back its cost in about four years and improves margins. But the analysis omits some costs: severance, possible customer losses among buyers that value domestic supply, risks of concentrating production in one country and the effect on morale in other plants.
A spreadsheet can count the savings from closing Fremont, but it cannot count what 4,000 other employees learn from watching how Fremont is treated.
Options Beyond Close or Stay
The binary framing hides alternatives. One option is to rebuild Fremont's furnace with a smaller, more energy-efficient design focused on domestic solar and automotive customers who value local supply, reducing costs and qualifying for federal clean energy manufacturing incentives. Another is a phased transition over five years with retraining, early retirement and support for the town's economic development. A third is to keep Fremont for high-value specialty glass while moving commodity products to Monterrey.
Evaluating Options Through the Three Bases
Descriptively, stakeholders will react: the town and employees will organize, customers will reassess and other plants will watch. Instrumentally, a specialty-focused Fremont could retain customers that value domestic supply and could earn incentives. Normatively, the company owes long-serving employees and the town fair consideration, honest communication and support if jobs are lost.
Recommended Approach
The analysis recommends the specialty option: rebuild a smaller, efficient furnace at Fremont for domestic specialty and solar customers, move commodity products to Monterrey and reduce Fremont's workforce through early retirement and attrition over three years, with retraining for those who remain. Financial returns are lower than a full closure but higher than the status quo, risks are diversified and the company honors obligations to its workforce and community.
What the Family Said
The founding family's members disagreed. Some valued the higher return of a full closure, given the investor's timeline. Others, especially those still living near Fremont, argued that the company's reputation in the region and its promises to long-serving employees mattered beyond any single year's returns. The specialty option gave both groups something: improved returns and a continued presence in Fremont.
A Fair Process
Whatever the decision, the process will be transparent: board review with full analysis of stakeholder impacts, consultation with employee representatives and town officials before a final decision and clear communication of the reasons.
Measures
Measures include financial returns, customer retention, employee engagement across plants, Fremont workforce transitions and community indicators such as local employment.
Limits
The analysis depends on estimates of incentives and customer preferences that may change. The board should revisit the decision if conditions shift.
Conclusion
Stakeholder theory offers descriptive, instrumental and normative reasons to consider stakeholders, while research cautions that social and financial performance do not always align and that leaders' values shape whom they see. Maumee's Fremont decision pits investor returns against employees and a town. Generating options beyond close or stay, evaluating them through all three bases of the theory and using a fair process points to a specialty-focused Fremont that creates more balanced value than either extreme.
References
Agle, B. R., Mitchell, R. K., & Sonnenfeld, J. A. (1999). Who matters to CEOs? An investigation of stakeholder attributes and salience, corporate performance, and CEO values. Academy of Management Journal, 42(5), 507-525. https://doi.org/10.5465/256973
Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence, and implications. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 65-91. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9503271992
Margolis, J. D., & Walsh, J. P. (2003). Misery loves companies: Rethinking social initiatives by business. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(2), 268-305. https://doi.org/10.2307/3556659
What the LDR 731 Week 5 instructions ask
Week 5 of LDR 731 typically centers on how top leaders weigh competing stakeholder claims while creating value across a global firm. Expect to explain stakeholder theory and its descriptive, instrumental and normative justifications, review evidence on the relationship between stakeholder or social performance and financial performance, examine how leaders decide which stakeholders matter and apply these ideas to a real decision with competing interests. A strong paper treats tradeoffs honestly, uses research rather than slogans, considers both shareholders and other stakeholders and proposes a decision process with criteria and measures. Instructors often reward a paper that states the decision it would make and defends it. Use peer-reviewed research in APA style.
How this LDR 731 Week 5 example is built
Maumee's Fremont, Ohio, plant runs the company's oldest furnace, employs 410 people in a town of 16,000 and needs a $45 million rebuild. Moving its production to an expanded Monterrey plant would save about $9 million a year. The family owners, a private equity minority investor, employees, the town, customers and Mexican workers would be affected differently. The paper draws on stakeholder theory's three justifications, a review showing that evidence on social and financial performance is mixed and that the question itself needs rethinking and a study finding that chief executives' values shape which stakeholders they see as salient. The analysis maps each group's stake, examines options beyond close or stay and proposes a decision process that weighs stakeholder value openly.
LDR 731 Week 5 grading rubric: where the points go
Strong submissions on stakeholder value show command of the theory's foundations and willingness to face real tradeoffs, naming who loses under each option and what the organization offers them. Graders notice when the less powerful groups are analyzed as carefully as the powerful ones. Graders look for accurate use of descriptive, instrumental and normative arguments, honest treatment of mixed evidence on social and financial performance and analysis of a specific decision in which stakeholder interests conflict. They reward attention to how leaders' values shape whom they consider, generation of options beyond the obvious and a transparent decision process. A clear recommendation, with its costs to some stakeholders acknowledged, shows doctoral judgment.
LDR 731 Week 5 help: mistakes to avoid
A common weakness is treating stakeholder management as a way to make everyone happy. Real decisions impose costs on some groups. Name them. Another frequent gap is claiming that social responsibility always pays financially; research is mixed. Present the evidence honestly. Some papers list stakeholders without analyzing their claims, power or the value at stake for each. Analyze them. Others present only two options, close or stay, when creative alternatives often exist. Generate options. Finally, describe the process leaders will use to decide and explain the decision to stakeholders, since procedural fairness matters even when outcomes disappoint.
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LDR 731 Week 5 questions, answered
What does LDR 731 Week 5 usually cover?
It usually covers how senior leaders balance stakeholder interests and create value, including stakeholder theory, evidence on social and financial performance and decisions with competing interests.
Where can I find a free LDR 731 Week 5 sample paper?
The stakeholder analysis of a plant closure decision at a composite global glass manufacturer is shown above as a full Week 5 sample.
What are the three bases of stakeholder theory?
Donaldson and Preston described descriptive, how firms actually behave, instrumental, how attention to stakeholders affects performance, and normative, why firms ought to consider stakeholders' interests.
Does corporate social responsibility improve financial performance?
Reviews find a small positive relationship on average but mixed results across studies, and some scholars argue the question should shift to how firms address social problems well.
How do CEOs decide which stakeholders matter?
Research found that stakeholders' power, legitimacy and urgency shaped their salience to chief executives, and that CEOs' own values influenced which stakeholders they emphasized.
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