Extended stakeholder theory (original) (raw)
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Teaching Stakeholder Theory: It's for Strategy, Not Business Ethics
Journal of Legal Studies Education, 1998
Other professoriala phrases that silence a mom indude tabula rasa, wid abhitio, ex ante, and ZeK have a pop quiz." I believe "Let's have a pop quiz" is the Englieh translation of tabula m a. ' Clearly not a profeesional term but one fitting rather into that category of terminology that includes. "Hey, doggies," 'Shazam," and "Show me the money." ' The author has actually exaggerated here CShazam!"). Stakeholder theory is a hifhlutin (see note 2 supm) term that emerged from the water in the form of a mythical professor and PETA advocate who surfaced while holding up a sign on problems with capitalism (legend has it that the sign read 'Capitalism ie a tool of the deviL3 Actually, stakeholder theory of the eighties ie tied to (no pun intended) a play on the word 'shareholder." The seminal work in the 1980's stakeholder field is attributed to FL Edward Freeman in his book, STRATEGIC MANAG= A S I m O L D E R APPROACH (1984). Freeman has continued the stakeholder quest with hie latest piece, A Ferninkt Reinterpretation ofthe Stakeholder Concept, appearing in 4 BUS. ETHICS Q. 475 (1994). More to come on feminists, see note 36 infrrr. No one seems to see the irony in the name origin of stakeholdex it's an interest in a company for free, man. Freeman ia not the originator of the tenn 'stakeholder" in the management literature, but he attributes its first appearanee to an internal memorandum at the Stanford 204 1 Vol. 16 1 The J o u m l of Legal Studies Education theory has been embraced by those who find that using it makes teaching business ethics really easy while enhancing cooperative Iearning.' When analyzing a case, all a professor needs to say is, "Now, who are all the stakeholders?" And the students respond, "Employees, suppliers, customers, our good fiends in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and aIl the fowls in the air and creatures of the sea and critters in our w~odlands."~ The activity of listing stakeholders affords us the quality Research Institute in 1963 which defined stakeholders as 'those groups without whose support the organization would cease to &t." Freeman, at 31. John Donaldson attributes its origins to Robert K. Merton in the 1950s. JOHN DONALDSON, BUSINESS However. the earlier origins of stakeholders in the legal literature is largely ignored and rarely credited. And not crediting lawyers for their work is dangerous ex ants. It was in the 1930s that law Professors Adolf Berle and Marrick Dodd went at each other on their disagreement about social responsibility. Berle and Dodd debated that great legal question: should those who hand over their dough, risk-wise, be required to listedsuccumb to those who have not invested any dough but are advocates for various causes? Berle maintained that nonshareholder interests (i.e., stakeholders) are an appropriate concern only if the shareholders say they are. Dodd, on the other. hand, described stakeholders as 'absentee ownera whose interests can be subjugated to those of other corporate constituencies and those of society at large." See, Adolf Berle,
Stakeholder Analysis - Theory from Field
In the development sector, we understand stakeholder, as an individual/ group/ agency who has the power to directly affect the organisation’s future. Those who are devoid of any power are not considered stakeholders. But W. Edward Freeman in his classic text Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (1984), differed to mention that “stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives”. A lot more can be said of and about stakeholders, but for the sake of brevity and keeping in view the objective of the write-up, the authors choose their experiences from academia and the field to deliberate on the aspect of stakeholder analysis.
Theoretical Foundations of Stakeholder Theory
Economic Studies journal, 2021
The article seeks to answer the question: on what foundations is the theory of stakeholders built. The contributions and achievements of economic, political and legal theories and concepts used in this theory, such as strategic management, systems analysis, motivational theories, industrial relations, etc. are revealed. The active implication of stakeholder theory in various recent policy initiatives might shed light on a new road for the development of corporations and society. JEL: G3; M2
The Case for Introducing Stakeholder Corporations
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
The objective of this paper is describe how the nature of corporations can and should be reformed to make them an explicit instrument for building an efficient, equitable and sustainable society that is locally controlled. The paper traces how the current concerns over the role of the modern corporation arose from their origin as an explicit instrument of political and economic colonisation. While rights of perpetual succession were consistent with the political origins of corporations, this allows investors to get overpaid with "surplus profits" that exacerbates global inequality in income and wealth. Another problem arises from democracy being undermined by family ownership and/or through what Peter Drucker describes as "pension fund socialism". Tax incentives are proposed to provide shareholders a bigger, quicker less risky short term profit in return for changing corporate constitutions to transfer their property rights to stakeholders over 20 years. The competing interests arising from stakeholder governance introduces self-governance, sustainable competitive advantages and enriches democracy. A Global Community Investment Code to promote the adoption of incentives to create stakeholder corporations is suggested in multi-national forums to counter concerns over globalisation.
Journal of Business Ethics, 2004
This article furthers the argument for a stakeholder theory that integrates into managerial decision-making the relationship between business organizations and the natural environment. The authors review the literature on stakeholder theory and the debate over whom or what should count as a stakeholder. The authors also critique and expand the stakeholder identification and salience model developed by Mitchell and Wood (1997) by reconceptualizing the stakeholder attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency, as well as by developing a fourth stakeholder attribute: proximity. In this way, the authors provide a stronger basis for arguing for the salience of the natural environment as the primary and primordial stakeholder of the firm.
Journal of Management Studies, 2002
Previous literature has led to a lack of appreciation of: the range of organization/stakeholder relations that can occur; the extent to which such relations change over time; as well as how and why such changes occur. In particular, extremely negative and highly conflicting relations between organizations and stakeholders have been ignored. Due to this lack of appreciation it is argued that current attempts at integrating the separate strands of stakeholder theory to achieve a convergent stakeholder theory are premature. A model is presented which combines stakeholder theory with a realist theory of social change and differentiation. This model is intended to highlight why it is important to distinguish different stakeholders. The model also enables an analysis of the organization/stakeholder relationship, which is not exclusively from the organization perspective and which is capable of illuminating why and how organization/stakeholder relations change over time. The history of Greenpeace is used as an example.
Stakeholder Theory Classification, Definitions and Essential Contestability
Business and Society 360, 2017
Recognising the stakeholder concept as an essentially contested concept subject to multiple competing interpretations, this chapter presents a systematic meta-theory level conceptual analysis of stakeholder theory. A conceptual enquiry is required for optimal development of stakeholder theory: to reduce conceptual confusion and prevent stakeholder theory from developing into an accumulation of disparate ideas. Methodology A bounded systematic review was undertaken to extract the extant range of stakeholder definitions. Using a meta-level conceptual enquiry the definitions were deconstructed and analysed to establish how these relate to variants of stakeholder theory. Determinants of the stakeholder concept were reconstructed, sorted, filtered and ordered to produce a comprehensive, multidimensional classification of stakeholder theory which was then subjected to empirical testing. Findings 593 different stakeholder interpretations were identified, analysed, sorted and ordered into a classification model based on 4 hyponyms leading to 16 definitional categories. The classification was tested with positive results. Limitations The conceptual enquiry focuses exclusively on management literature: Alternative worldviews may propose alternative variables/classifications. Originality Stakeholder theory has been accused of being an umbrella concept rather than a distinct theory per se. The proposed classification, based on an unparalleled systematic review and meta-level analysis of stakeholder definitions, clearly indicates that stakeholder theory is a single theory. Through the analysis of multi-contextual contributions to Central to stakeholder theory is the concept of the stakeholder, but what is a stakeholder? This appears a simple question but is not one that has been answered with any degree of consensus. The lack of consensus arises from the very nature of stakeholder theory, as an amalgamation of eclectic narratives (Gilbert and Rasche, 2008) spanning strategic management, business ethics, marketing, human resource management, finance and corporate governance as well as far reaching adoption outside of business disciplines. Widely different conceptualisations of stakeholder theory and stakeholder definitions have emerged from these narratives as different definitions and approaches are generated to serve different purposes (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar, and DeColle, 2010), each focusing on attributes that are relevant to context. As a consequence hundreds of stakeholder definitions exist (Miles, 2011). Such profusion is testimony to the appeal of stakeholder theory but it is also "one of its prominent theoretical liabilities" (Phillips, Freeman and Wicks, 2003:479) and an issue that opponents, such as Sternberg (1997) are quick to criticize. There have been numerous calls made by academics (e.g.