Nowadays, students are more aware of the impact of companies on their stakeholders and
the need for properly handling their expectations to operationalize corporate social responsibility.
Nevertheless, little is known about how certain individual traits may relate to their stance on
the issue. This exploratory research contributes to stakeholder theory by analysing the e ect of
the individual’s decision-making process, including the consideration of their social preferences,
on their orientation toward stakeholder management. Here, we draw upon a theoretical model
for resource-allocation decision-making consisting of reciprocal and non-reciprocal components.
Our data, from undergraduate students enrolled in di erent degrees, were collected through a
questionnaire and two social within-subject experiments (ultimatum and dictator games). Thus, our
results show that the presence of a reciprocal component when decisions are made is positively linked
to an instrumental orientation toward stakeholders. In addition, a greater non-reciprocal component
in the decision-making process corresponds to a more normative orientation.
