Are Customers 10x More Important to Firms than Employees?

Abstract

Employees and customers are arguably two of the most critical stakeholders for businesses. This paper documents a stark imbalance among scholars and practitioners regarding the relative emphasis between these two stakeholders. Text analysis of earnings call transcripts of S&P 500 firms reveals that executives talk about customers 10 times more often than employees. And when they do, executives perceive customers to be analogous to opportunities and employees to risks. A bias towards customers (relative to employees) continues to be omnipresent across board compositions in the United States (and outside) and the academic domain of strategic management. The patterns shed light on a discrepancy inconsistent with existing theory and rhetoric of firms and should inform a discussion about the sources and consequences of this imbalance.