What We Talk About When We Talk About Stakeholders

Abstract

Will stakeholder theory continue to transform how we think about business and society? On the occasion of this journal’s 60th anniversary, this review article examines the journal’s role in shaping stakeholder theory to date and suggests that it still has transformative potential. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of co-citations in the literature from 1984 to 2020. Reporting these results, we examine the field’s evolving structure. Contextualized theoretically as an accomplishment of institutional work—the creation of a meaningful and innovative field ideology—this structure is remarkable for how it integrates ethical and behavioral arguments, invites engagement from adjacent domains, and arrives at important insights for business and society. We advance a research agenda consistent with this larger institutional project.

Business–society interface: An exploration of a paradigmatic heuristic model of corporate social responsibility in Colombia

“…The forced performative connection between discourse and action leads to new management practices of CSR in three ways. Firstly, given the evidence regarding transition zones and overlaps to describe the role of CSR in the business–society interface, management is compelled to consider the need for allowing a more influential role in stakeholders' dialogs from a strategic perspective (Johnson‐Cramer et al, 2022; Richter & Dow, 2017). Socio‐cognitive construction with stakeholders extends far beyond the simple exercise of materiality needed for a sustainability report, and alters the practice of corporate governance.…”

“…There can be multiple transition zones and overlaps, if recognized as an explanatory continuum of the business–society interface. The transition zones and overlaps between CSR perspectives represent a response to the evolutionary dynamics of the concept (Matten & Moon, 2020), which is primarily attributable to rebalancing in the valuation of the social sphere of the business–society interface (Aguilera et al, 2007; Amaeshi & Adi, 2007), and subject to the businesses' commitment to contextualized and localized CSR (Matten & Moon, 2008) and the need to create value for stakeholders and meaningfully engage with relevant communities and territories (Johnson‐Cramer et al, 2022) (Figure 2). Notably, contemporary CSR is responsive to the emergence of new global agendas regarding the environment and human rights matters and demands for transparency and accountability (Banerjee, 2008; Fordham & Robinson, 2018a, 2018b; Matten & Moon, 2020; Okoye, 2009).…”

“…The guerrilla violence in Colombia attacked the financial infrastructure as a revolutionary focus, particularly in rural Regarding transition zones, the construction of the businesssociety interface in the financial sector reveals three overlaps in the CSR discourse (Figure 6). The first, when the community and its specific association to the territory implies a stakeholder with the power of dialog that promotes co-construction and performative views of CSR (Baker & Modell, 2019;Johnson-Cramer et al, 2022). The second, when decision-making rooted in the necessary values of trust, transparency, and accountability shapes the relationships of the different stakeholders with the company (Angus- Leppan et al, 2010;Banerjee, 2008;Mubushar et al, 2021;Okoye, 2009), and the third, when accountability through transparent sustainability reports compels the company to prepare stakeholder mapping and build materiality matrices (Fordham & Robinson, 2018b;Matten & Moon, 2020).…”

Stakeholder governance to facilitate collaboration for a systemic circular economy transition: A qualitative study in the European chemicals and plastics industry

“…As Johnson‐Cramer et al (2022) note, current scholarship in stakeholder theory seems to be affected by “the stakeholder‐system divide” that underscores the tendency of the company‐centric focus of stakeholder management to sideline the issues of the desirable societal systemic change. This divide has long been acknowledged by those stakeholder theorists who pleaded for “decentering the firm in firm‐stakeholder analysis” (Berman & Johnson‐Cramer, 2019, p. 1370) and objected to firm‐centric understandings of stakeholder collaborations (e.g., Bevan et al, 2019, p. 132; +Calton & Payne, 2003; Sachs & Rühli, 2011).…”

“…However, it appears that the CE scholarship has not yet fully examined how stakeholder collaboration that is guided by functional governance could advance the systemic character of a CE (see, e.g., Blomsma et al, 2023; de Jesus et al, 2021; Köhler et al, 2022). In this context, Johnson‐Cramer et al (2022, p. 1112) identify “the stakeholder‐system divide” in the current scholarly understanding of stakeholder theory; that is, stakeholder theory is less useful for understanding how corporations promote systemic change or deal with societal grand challenges because of “the disconnection between firm and system‐level needs” (ibid). Moreover, stakeholder theory is commonly characterized as “pro‐business” and less concerned with broad societal and systemic impacts (Dmytriyev et al, 2021; Freeman et al, 2007, p. iii; Freeman, Phillips, & Sisodia, 2020).…”