Exploring the antecedents and consequences of firm-stakeholder engagement process: A systematic review of literature

Abstract

The extant business and management literature have primarily viewed stakeholder engagement (SE) as an activity and centred on exploring the methods of firm-stakeholder interactions. Some scholars have studied SE as a process and examined its components (Hoffmann & Lutz, 2015; Lane & Devin, 2018). However, current investigations of the antecedents and consequences of SE processes are fragmented and mainly focused on either company or stakeholder context. In this systematic review, we pursued the vast body of literature on firm-stakeholder engagement and comprehensively examined over 170 research articles to accumulate precursors and outcomes of SE processes. Our work has two unique properties: first, it consolidates the knowledge of the antecedents and consequences of SE processes to generate a holistic view of the firm-stakeholder relationships. Second, it explores the existence of business practices in instrumental and normative dimensions using the concept of “continuum” to provide deeper insights into the SE processes. We used thematic analysis to provide evidence of the growing interest of academics and managers in firm-stakeholder engagement. The findings of this study suggest that shared benefits with a long-term perspective are valuable to both corporation and its stakeholders. In this critical analysis of the SE literature, we also provide implications for researchers and practitioners