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Management Decision
Stakeholder theory: issues to resolve

Emerson Wagner Mainardes Helena Alves Mario Raposo
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Emerson Wagner Mainardes Helena Alves Mario Raposo, (2011),"Stakeholder theory: issues to resolve",
Management Decision, Vol. 49 Iss 2 pp. 226 - 252
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MD
49,2
Stakeholder theory: issues to

resolve
Emerson Wagner Mainardes, Helena Alves and Mario Raposo
226
Center for Studies in Management Science,

Management and Economics Department, NECE, University of Beira Interior,
Covilha, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose The objective of this paper is to collate and debate the main issues driving the stakeholder
theory academic debate.
Design/methodology/approach First, a discussion of the stakeholder concept is set out before
moving on to the history and nature of stakeholder theory. The work proceeds with an attempt to
bring together systematically the points of divergence among researchers interested in stakeholder
theory, and, finally, there is a brief discussion of these theoretical loopholes in conjunction with a
proposed research agenda for the field.
Findings Based on the unification of the theoretically problematic issues, research agenda are put
forward with the objective of clarifying doubts and resolving the controversies ongoing among
academics. As regards the formulation of stakeholder theory, one question requiring resolution is that
of the stakeholder concept itself. Additionally, further research should focus on the boundaries as to
what constitutes a stakeholder group as well as defining the criteria for attributing individual
membership of one or another group. In practical theoretical application, it is correspondingly
necessary to target research on aspects such as conflicts of interest between stakeholders and
management difficulties in coping with multiple objectives. Finally, there is a need for research that
systematizes the knowledge produced with the objective of attaining the theoretical convergence
necessary for the development of stakeholder theory.
Originality/value The main contribution of this paper derives from the systematization of the
various shortcomings that need overcoming within the framework of stakeholder theory and the
identification of research agendas.
Keywords Stakeholders, Research work
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
Stakeholder theory was put forward by Freeman (1984) as a proposal for the strategic
management of organizations in the late twentieth century. Over time, this theory has
gained in importance, with key works by Clarkson (1994, 1995), Donaldson and Preston
(1995), Mitchell et al. (1997), Rowley (1997) and Frooman (1999) enabling both greater
theoretical depth and development. From an initially strategic perspective, the theory
evolved and was adopted as a means of management by many market-based
organizations.
Given it remains a relatively recent addition to the management field, stakeholder
theory has not been fully developed. According to Fassin (2008), the success of
Management Decision
Vol. 49 No. 2, 2011
pp. 226-252
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0025-1747
DOI 10.1108/00251741111109133
This research was supported by the Portuguese Science Foundation through Nucleo de
Investigacao em Ciencias Empresariais (Programa de Financiamento Plurianual das Unidades de
I&D da Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Ensino
Superior/Portugal).
stakeholder theory, both in the management literature and in business practice, is due
in large part to the simplicity inherent to the model. However, over the years, some
academics have criticized the vagueness and ambiguity of this theory. The stakeholder
model, backed as it is by its simplicity and clear visual presentation, has stirred
debates in the academic literature.
Indeed, very few management themes have generated as many published works in
recent decades as the underlying concept, i.e. the model and theories around
stakeholders (Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Gibson, 2000; Wolfe and Putler, 2002;
Friedman and Miles, 2006). One of the most salient characteristics of this theory is the
diversity in the points of view that have been expressed within its scope.
Correspondingly, there is a low level of theoretical integration whether in terms of the
normative, instrumental or descriptive dimensions as well as within the actual
dimensions themselves (Lepineux, 2005).
Hence, the objective of this article is to bring together and discuss some of the
questions driving stakeholder theory academic debate. This research was motivated
by the sheer relevance of the theory to various different areas, especially strategic
management, marketing, corporative governance, corporate social responsibility,
business ethics, public management, among others.
Similarly, the main contribution of this article derives primarily from the
systematization of some of the shortcomings that need overcoming within the
framework of stakeholder theory. Based upon this unification of the theoretically
problematic issues, we then set out research agendas aiming to clarify the doubts and
resolve the controversies that have been ongoing among academics.
In order to achieve this objective, this paper is structured as follows: firstly, there is
discussion of the stakeholder concept before moving onto the history and nature of
stakeholder theory and presenting the three approaches that explain the theory, the
normative, instrumental and descriptive approaches. The next stage attempts to
systematically bring together the points of divergence among researchers interested in
stakeholder theory, and finally, there is a brief discussion of these theoretical loopholes
in conjunction with a suggested research agenda for the field.
2. The stakeholder concept
The origin of the stakeholder concept lies in the business science literature (Freeman,
1984), and may be traced back even as far as Adam Smith and his The Theory of Moral
Sentiments. Its modern utilization in management literature was brought about by the
Stanford Research Institute, which introduced the term in 1963 to generalize and
expand the notion of the shareholders as the only group that management needed to be
sensitive towards ( Jongbloed et al., 2008). Within this perspective, Freeman (1984)
argued that business organizations should be concerned about the interests of other
stakeholders when taking strategic decisions.
Although a relatively longstanding term, the development of stakeholder theory was
set in motion by the work of Freeman (1984). The objective of his work was to delineate
an alternative form of strategic management as a response to rising competitiveness,
globalization and the growing complexity of company operations. As time went by, the
stakeholder concept has taken on greater importance due to public interest, greater
coverage by the media, concerns about corporative governance and its adoption as a
policy within the scope of the Third Way (Hutton, 1999; Greenwood, 2008).
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Meanwhile, in accordance with Friedman and Miles (2006), the term stakeholder
has been deployed indiscriminately in the last two decades. The term is highly popular
with businesses, governments, non-governmental organizations and even with the
media. Despite this widespread usage, many who adopt the term neither define the
concept nor provide any particularly clear understanding of what they mean as
regards what a stakeholder actually is. Even in academic circles, countless definitions
of stakeholder have been put forward without any of those suggested ever gaining
consensus, and hence there is no single, definitive and generally accepted definition.
The works of Bryson (2004), Buchholz and Rosenthal (2005), Pesqueux and
Damak-Ayadi (2005), Friedman and Miles (2006) and Beach (2008) contain a total of 66
different concepts for the term stakeholder.
Although each researcher defines the concept differently, they do as a rule reflect
the same principle to a greater or lesser extent: the company should take into
consideration the needs, interests and influences of peoples and groups who either
impact on or may be impacted by its policies and operations (Frederick et al., 1992).
Hence, according to Clarkson (1995), the stakeholder concept contains three
fundamental factors:
(1) the organization;
(2) the other actors; and
(3) the nature of the company-actor relationships.
However, Mitchell et al. (1997) propose that these concepts represent phenomena in
themselves, including:
.
the relationship between the company and the stakeholders (as in Freeman, 1994);
.
the position of the stakeholder towards the company (e.g. Starik, 1994);
.
the company as dependent upon stakeholders (see Freeman and Reed, 1983);
.
the stakeholder wielding power over the company (according to Brenner, 1995);
.
the stakeholder as dependent on the company (as is the case in Langtry, 1994);
.
the company as holding power over the stakeholder (see Carroll, 1993);
.
the company and stakeholder as mutually dependent (e.g. Wicks et al., 1994);
.
the company and the stakeholder as engaged in contractual relations (as in Hill
and Jones, 1992);
.
the stakeholder as holding a right on the company (see Evan and Freeman, 1988);
.
the stakeholder as running some kind of risk (see Clarkson, 1994);
.
the stakeholder as having a moral right over the company (according to Carroll,
1989); or
.
the stakeholder as having an interest in the company (see Clarkson, 1995).
In summary, whether broader or more restrictive, these are understandings of the
stakeholder concept as connected to organizations and which, according to Mitchell
et al. (1997), may guide the actions of a specific organization.
However, despite the countless definitions and differing emphasizes, which may
result in distorted conceptual interpretations (Friedman and Miles, 2006), a large
majority of studies adopt the definition idealized by Freeman (1984) that individuals or
groups may influence or be influenced by the scope of organizational objectives.

Within this concept, a person, an informal group, an organization or an institution may
all be stakeholders. Mitchell et al. (1997) state that the Freeman (1984) definition is so
broad that it opens up an infinite scope for stakeholders as even climatic factors may
play this role. Hence, there is a need to establish limits to the extent of stakeholders. To
this end, Freeman and Evan (1990) reduce the organizational environment to a
multilateral agreement between an organization and its stakeholders.
3. History and nature of stakeholder theory
The origins of stakeholder theory draw on four key academic fields i.e. sociology,
economics, politics and ethics and especially the literature on corporate planning,
systems theory, corporate social responsibility and organizational theory. Freeman
(1984), over the course of his work entitled Strategic Management: a Stakeholder
Approach, generally accepted as launching the stakeholder theory concepts, defines
how stakeholders with similar interests or rights form a group. What Freeman (1984)
was seeking to explain was the relationship between the company and its external
environment and its behavior within this environment. The author set out his model as
if a chart in which the company is positioned at the centre and is involved with
stakeholders connected with the company.
In this model, the company-stakeholder relationships are dyadic and mutually
independent (Frooman, 1999). According to Fassin (2009), the model proposed by
Freeman (1984) may have been inspired by a tool drawn from sociology, the sociogram,
which visualizes the frequency of interactions between individuals or groups. The
model design was influenced by the traditional capitalist organizational production
model in which the company is related only to four groups: the suppliers, employees
and shareholders supplying the basic resources that the company transforms into
products or services for the fourth group, that is, the clients. Nevertheless, Freeman
(1984) also added other groups influenced by company activities and saw the
organization as the centre of a series of interdependent relationships (Crane and
Matten, 2004).
The ideas of Freeman (1984), which culminated in stakeholder theory, emerged out
of an organizational context in which the company was perceived as not being
self-sufficient and actually dependent on the external environment made up of groups
external to the organization, as Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) had earlier observed. These
were the external groups that Freeman (1984) termed stakeholders. This situation
was later handled by Frooman (1999) as resource dependency.
According to Jones and Wicks (1999) and Savage et al. (2004), the basic premises of
Stakeholder Theory are:
.
the organization enters into relationships with many groups that influence or are
influenced by the company, i.e. stakeholders in accordance with Freemans
(1984) terminology;
.
the theory focuses on the nature of these relationships in terms of processes and
results for the company and for stakeholders;
.
the interests of all legitimate stakeholder are of intrinsic value and it is assumed
that there is no single prevailing set of interests as Clarkson (1995) and
Donaldson and Preston (1995) pointed out;
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.
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the theory focuses upon management decision making;

the theory explains how stakeholders try and influence organizational decision
making processes so as to be consistent with their needs and priorities; and
as regards organizations, these should attempt to understand and balance the
interests of the various participants.
Taking these premises into consideration, and according to Clarkson (1995), Donaldson
and Preston (1995), Rowley (1997), Scott and Lane (2000) and Baldwin (2002), the concept
of stakeholder management was developed so that organizations could recognize, analyze
and examine the characteristics of individuals or groups influencing or being influenced
by organizational behavior. Thus, management is carried out over three levels:
(1) the identification of stakeholders;
(2) the development of processes identifying and interpreting their needs and
interests; and
(3) the construction of relationships with the entire process structured around the
organizations respective objectives.
On the other hand, stakeholders define their expectations, experience the effects of the
relational experience with the organization, evaluate the results obtained and act in
accordance with these evaluations, strengthening or otherwise their ties with the
company (Polonsky, 1996, Post et al., 2002, Neville et al., 2005).
While Freeman (1984) limited his own intentions to providing an approach to the
subject, generalizing and testing the taking of strategic management decisions,
stakeholder theory earned its wings, both among academics and among practitioners,
as a new theory of the firm (Key, 1999). Within this framework, stakeholder literature
breaks down into two main branches one strategic and one moral (Goodpaster, 1991,
Frooman, 1999). The strategic literature emphasizes the active management of
stakeholder interests while literature in the moral field is primarily interested in a
balance between stakeholder interests.
Freeman and McVea (2001) clarified how stakeholder theory was originally
developed within a framework of four distinct lines of organizational management
research, as demonstrated by Freeman (1984):
(1) strategic organizational planning;
(2) systems theory;
(3) corporate social responsibility; and
(4) organizational theory:
Within the strategic organizational planning line, the concept is that successful
strategies correspond to the integration of all stakeholder interests (contrary to the
maximization of one groups position to the detriment of others).
Both systems theory and organizational theory focus upon the idea that
organizations are open systems that interact with diverse third parties and thus it is
necessary to set out collective strategies that perfect the system as a whole beyond the
actual recognition of all the relationships on which companies depend for their own
survival.
Corporate social responsibility is not considered a formalized theoretical group but

rather a series of business case studies and empirical analyses seeking to demonstrate
the importance of building up strong and trustworthy relationships and maintaining a
good reputation with all groups external to the organization for its ongoing success.
Within the broad context of this theory, it may be stated that diverse stakeholder
groups interact with a company. According to Clarkson (1995), these groups may be
subdivided into two:
(1) the primary those with formal or official contractual relationships with the
company, such as clients, suppliers, employees, shareholders, among others;
and
(2) the secondary those without such contracts, such as government authorities
or the local community.
In this way, we may configure a company as a set of relationships, explicit or implicit,
across both the internal and external environments. However, with the emergence and
advance of stakeholder theory, attention began to be paid to the interests of these
distinct groups of individuals and not only to the shareholders or owners of the
company (Argandona, 1998; Gibson, 2000).
Indeed, history now states it was Freeman (1984) who was the first researcher to
clearly identify the strategic importance of other groups and individuals to the
company, different to the traditional groups of clients, suppliers, employees and
shareholders. In fact, he saw these groups as highly disparate, such as local
community, environmentalist and consumer defense organizations as well as
government authorities, special interest groups and with even competitors and the
media as legitimate stakeholders (Clement, 2005). Given there were so many
stakeholder groups listed by Freeman (1984), over time the need to group them was
encountered within the scope of efforts to reduce managerial complexity. For example,
Gibson (2000) proceeded to group stakeholders into institutional (involving laws,
regulations), economic (actors in the marketplace) and ethical (environment and social
pressure groups) categories. Furthermore, for Lepineux (2005), these became
shareholders, internal stakeholders, operational partners and community.
However, in accordance with Freeman and Liedtka (1997), stakeholder theory was
bound up with an already long-standing tradition that perceived business as an
integral part of society and not as some separate and purely economic institution.
Radin (1999) affirmed that stakeholder theory means recognizing that organizations
hold responsibilities towards people and entities beyond their stockholders.
Stakeholder theory draws on analytical mechanisms from Systems Theory, for
example, regarding the interdependence and integration of actors making up a system
and in seeking to explain the interrelationship between them (Campbell, 1997). Hill and
Jones (1992) had already utilized agency theory, which approaches the company as the
nexus of contracts between stakeholders and managers as if some central node. This
operates as the means to explain how managers bear responsibility for conciliating
divergent interests, taking strategic decisions and allocating strategic resources in
whatever form proves most coherent with the demands of the other stakeholders.
Thus, the theory of Freeman (1984) came against a scenario of rising awareness as
to the importance of business to society and along with the beginnings of the
globalization of markets and the development of information technologies and means
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of communication followed by the later heightening of social pressures applied by

governments, trade unions, political groups and communities in general. Stakeholder
theory arrived in time to explain and predict how organizations should act by taking
into consideration the influences of stakeholders hitherto left out of the range of
analysis, such as the local community and the media, among others.
Many have already posited that the destiny of stakeholder theory is to topple the
dominant paradigm, the economic model of the company (Key, 1999). The
aforementioned theory seeks to set down attitudes and organizational practices for
the company to survive and prosper (Brenner, 1993). Given this situation, the influence
of stakeholders in organizational strategy requires responses on behalf of the company
reflecting the potential power, whether to threaten or to cooperate, of each stakeholder
within a context of mutually exchanging interests and benefits.
Without doubt, the appearance of stakeholder theory proved a counterbalance to the
key actor approach, based upon agency theory, in its presentation of a more collectivist
vision of organizations as a social vehicle for human development. Within this
framework, Clarkson (1995) stated that the survival and sustainable profitability of
organizations depended upon their capacity to comply with the economic and social
purpose defined as creating and distributing sufficient wealth or value to ensure that
each group of primary stakeholders continues to be a part of the companys system.
Hence, an organization may be seen as a set of interdependent relationships between
primary stakeholders, a perspective that has seen significant research in the field of
organizational strategy (Evan and Freeman, 1988; Hill and Jones, 1992; Kotter and
Heskett, 1992; Harrison and St John, 1994; Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Jones, 1995;
Greenley and Foxall, 1996; Hillman and Keim, 2001).
After the theory took shape and over time, stakeholders slowly moved in from the
periphery of organizational activities towards a more central position. Andriof et al.
(2002) explains that the stakeholder concept, its involvement and relationship with the
organization is now positioned as characteristic of most modern companies. In the last
two decades, there has been a perceivable rise in the number of research publications
dealing with the strategy and positioning of stakeholders in organizational
decision-making (Asher et al., 2005). Various studies point to the utilization of
stakeholder theory for analyzing the circumstances faced by contemporary
organizations (Freeman and Liedtka, 1997; Metcalfe, 1998; Clarke, 2005).
This emphasis may have come about, according to Clement (2005), given the greater
level of pressures on organizations currently facing demands for responses from
distinct groups of stakeholders. As these stakeholders are in constant interaction with
the company, they may provide them with contributions or important resources while
each also represents interests needing to be satisfied. Correspondingly, analyzing who
the stakeholders are, identifying their interests and how they act is fundamental to
contemporary organizations, and especially in terms of those stakeholders of greatest
importance to organizational survival and being able to meet their respective needs
(Hill and Jones, 1998).
4. Normative aspects of stakeholder theory
As Donaldson and Preston (1995) affirmed, stakeholder theory cannot be considered a
single theory, but rather a set of theories for the management of stakeholders. This
theoretical set is divided into three approaches (Friedman and Miles, 2006):
(1) the descriptive (which sets out how the organization operates in terms of
stakeholder management);
(2) the instrumental (which demonstrates how to attain organizational objectives
through stakeholder management); and
(3) the normative (which defines how businesses should operate, especially in
relation to moral principles).
We now take up this third theme.
The normative approach is based upon moral premises about how actors and
organizations should go about their activities. According to Donaldson and Preston
(1995), stakeholder-oriented policies are justifiable based upon the supposition that
they do hold legitimate interests in the company activities that should be taken into
consideration by managers as, from Freemans (1998) perspective, stakeholders should
not be seen merely as the means of raising organizational performance. Research
within this framework evaluates relationships in accordance with ethical and
philosophic principles. Jones and Wicks (1999) propose stakeholder theory as a
normative ethic that should approach which obligations from the stakeholder model
rest upon the management, and particularly the level of importance of obligations
attributed to some stakeholders over other stakeholder groups.
Within this perspective, Friedman and Miles (2006) draw an institutional vision of
the organization defined as an arena of competing, and on occasion conflicting,
multiple interests. This social space sees stakeholders acting from different positions of
power depending on the organizational sustainability of negotiations and the specific
cooperative solutions agreed upon.
Some studies have explicitly justified this normative dimension to stakeholder
theory (Freeman and McVea, 2001, Hansen et al., 2004) making recourse to legal
arguments, such as property rights (Donaldson and Preston, 1995, Blair, 1998). Others
deploy the Rawlsian construct of a social contract (Freeman and Evan, 1990; Child and
Marcoux, 1999; Phillips, 2003). There are, however, also economic arguments that
incorporate relationships of trust (Goodpaster, 1991; Boatright, 1994; Marcoux, 2003) or
agency theory (Shankman, 1999) and moral reasoning (Gibson, 2000), such as the
equity principle (Phillips, 1997; Metcalfe, 1998), Kantian theory, the right to be treated
as an end (Evan and Freeman, 1988; Bowie, 1999) or through recourse to the concept of
the common good (Argandona, 1998).
According to proponents of business ethics, the normative aspect of stakeholder
theory incorporates the following trends: Evan and Freeman (1983) and Bowie (1994)
identify Kantian capitalism, for Phillips (1997) justice, according to Freeman (1994) fair
contracts, while Freeman and Gilbert (1988) propose personal projects and, in
accordance with Wicks et al. (1994), the feminist approach.
In summary, these theories guide the thinking behind stakeholder theory, orienting
its principles towards the application of theory as a proposed relationship between the
company and its stakeholders within a fair, ethical and morally correct framework
(deontological principles), where interests are not purely economic (utilitarian
principles), thereby justifying both the actions of management as well as the results
obtained. The theories cited, according to Friedman and Miles (2006), act as influential
inputs into stakeholder theory normative thinking.
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Therefore, the normative facet to stakeholder theory may serve to generalize the
understanding of how organizational behaviors may be shaped and fashioned. In other
words, the efforts of management need to be focused on grasping why the company
needs to satisfy its stakeholders and how to achieve this as well as prescribing values
for the undertaking of normative research projects (Freeman, 1999; Radin, 1999).
Complementarily, McVea and Freeman (2005) propose that stakeholders should be
understood as real, and not abstract, individuals as only thus can managers gain
awareness about the options they take and considering the moral and ethical aspects to
each organizational decision. Stakeholder theory should focus on the creation of value,
decision-making processes and relationships with real individuals. This represents an
individualization of the company-stakeholder relationship.
Many researchers involved in stakeholder theory agree that the normative
dimension depends upon the other dimensions (descriptive and instrumental) and
these should not be underestimated. When positing certain types of behavior, it is
important to compare the desirable with the real. Rowley (1997) explained that any
understanding of this theory requires not only explaining the influences wielded by
stakeholders, but also how the company responds to these influences. In addition,
stakeholder theory needs to describe and predict how organizations are to operate
under diverse and different conditions. More recent revisions of the normative facet of
stakeholder theory suggest three categories for stakeholder participation:
(1) moderate, that is dealing with parties with respect;
(2) intermediary, thus incorporating some stakeholder interests into organizational
management; and
(3) demanding, hence with the full participation of such actors in corporate decision
making processes (Hendry, 2001 Flak et al., 2008).
5. Analytic aspects of stakeholder theory
The analytical perspective to stakeholder theory covers two dimensions:
(1) the descriptive perspective; and
(2) the instrumental perspective.
Both were discussed in the study by Donaldson and Preston (1995), and later renamed
by Reed (2002) as positive and strategic. Despite this proposal, the original terminology
(i.e. descriptive and instrumental) has prevailed in the literature. According to
Friedman and Miles (2006), these perspectives should be centered on the organization,
on the organization-stakeholder relationship, or directly on the stakeholder.
The instrumental perspective, proposed initially by Jones (1995) and later furthered
by Donaldson and Preston (1995), explores how the stakeholder model may be used to
attain the performance objectives of an organization as a tool to be deployed in
strategic decision making, where certain results derive from enacting certain behaviors
( Jones and Wicks, 1999). This relates primarily to the relational management of
specific stakeholder groups (Freeman, 1984). For example, Berman et al. (1999)
proposed a strategic stakeholder management model based on the premise that
companies address the concerns of stakeholders when believing this will boost
company financial performance and is hence an instrumental approach. The
instrumental perspective of stakeholder theory is based upon organizational
economics, especially agency theory, transaction cost theory and corporate behavioral
ethics (Jones, 1995). From Stariks (1994) perspective, that which became the
instrumental aspect enables organizations to personalize relationships with
stakeholders, particularize their interests and raise managerial awareness of
organizational decisions, processes and policies.
Studies adopting the instrumental theory normally use statistical methodologies
and focus principally upon the relationship between the pressures that stakeholders
may apply and the process by which organizational strategy is formulated (e.g.
Weaver et al., 1999) and derive from the relationship between financial and social
performance (as with the studies by Cochran and Wood, 1984; Cornell and Shapiro,
1987; McGuire et al., 1988; Barton et al., 1989; Preston et al., 1991). In general, they
explore causes and effects.
As regards the descriptive perspective, this seeks to describe and/or explain
characteristics and organizational behaviors relative to stakeholders. This perspective
discusses issues relating to the nature of the firm, how managers act and what they
think about the strategic components (Donaldson and Preston, 1995). Wood (1994)
advocated that the descriptive theory of the stakeholder should extend over two facets:
(1) describing the organizational reality; and
(2) describing the company-stakeholder relationships.
This represents the difference between inductive and deductive visions. According to
this author, of these two modes, neither is preferred and both approaches make
significant contributions towards the development of stakeholder theory as both
contain factors important for any understanding of organizational relationships with
stakeholders.
Descriptive theory resulted out of the need to describe (and very often explain)
specific characteristics and behaviors, including the nature of firms (Brenner and
Cochran, 1991), how managers perceive their companies (Brenner and Molander, 1977),
how organizations are managed (Halal, 1990; Clarkson, 1991; Kreiner and Bhambri,
1991), the diffusion of social information (Ullman, 1985), the concept of
target-stakeholders (Mitchell et al., 1997), and the meanings attributed to each
stakeholder, varying in accordance with the phase reached in the respective company
life cycle ( Jawahar and McLaughlin, 2001). Research carried out under this approach is
normally exploratory.
Of these two approaches, the instrumental perspective has received greatest
attention from researchers with its highlighting of stakeholder management as a factor
for competitive advantage and better performance. According to Donaldson and
Preston (1995), the effectiveness of stakeholder management is positively correlated
with conventional performance indicators.
The instrumental aspects of the Donaldson and Preston (1995) model were taken up
especially by Mitchell et al. (1997), who researched manager perceptions on stakeholder
characteristics and their relevance as regards facets such as power, legitimacy and
urgency, given how stakeholder management is of particular importance to business
projects taking place in institutionally demanding environments.
According to Aaltonen et al. (2008), the existing research points to management
paying attention to stakeholders where these are deemed more important in terms of
power, legitimacy and urgency. The question of stakeholder relevance and the extent
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to which managers attribute priority to competing stakeholder requests stretches

beyond the issue of stakeholder identification. Thus, it is correspondingly necessary to
theoretically grasp how stakeholder relevance may be able to explain where managers
really should be applying their attentions (Mitchell et al., 1997).
With the objective of resolving this question, a three-factor model was put forward
(power, urgency and legitimacy) by Mitchell et al. (1997). Entitled stakeholder
salience, it was defined according to Friedman and Miles (2006) to bring about
stakeholder powers of negotiation, the legitimacy of relationships with organizations,
and urgency as regards meeting the needs present. In the perspective of Mitchell et al.
(1997), stakeholder salience suggests a dynamic model based on an identification
typology enabling the explicit recognition of the uniqueness of situations and a
management perception explaining how managers should prioritize relationships with
stakeholders. The authors demonstrated how the identification typology enabled
forecasts of managerial behavior as regards each class of stakeholder to be generated
as well as predictions as to how stakeholders change from one class to another and
what that actually means to the management. This model features three advantages:
(1) it is political (considering the organization as the result of conflicting and
unequal interests);
(2) it is operational (qualifying the stakeholders); and
(3) it is dynamic (contemplating changes of interests in social space-time).
The model proposed suggests that the strategic behavior of an organization is subject
to diverse groups located within its environment, given that its strategies should meet
the needs of these groups in accordance with their respective importance. This is
defined by the following three factors, which vary depending on the prevailing
situation (Mitchell et al., 1997):
(1) Power The ability to make someone do something that would not otherwise
have been done, the power of the stakeholder over the organization may be
coercive (strength or threat), normative (legislative, the media) or utilitarian
(holding resources or information).
(2) Legitimacy The generalized perception that the actions of an entity are
desirable or appropriate in accordance with the socially constructed context and
may be individual, organizational or social.
(3) Urgency The immediate need for action, determining the organizational
response time when receiving requests from stakeholders, should consider time
sensitivity (the need for speed in the organizational response) and the criticality
(the importance of the request or the company relationship with the stakeholder
in question), with this factor rendering the model dynamic.
According to Wartick (1994), power is the most critical dimension to stakeholder
management, and hence he recommends great care in recognizing and monitoring
relationships with those stakeholders holding greatest power. After all, one of the basic
tenets of stakeholder theory is that stakeholders are not equal with their importance
also varying dependent on the prevailing context and organization. As Evan and
Freeman (1983) detailed, the essence of the company is to manage the interests of
different stakeholders and including changes in expectations and demands.
Mitchell et al. (1997) held that the model proposed is dynamic for three reasons:
(1) the three attributes are variable (and neither static nor stationary);
(2) the attributes are socially constructed (and not objective); and
(3) not all stakeholders are aware that they possess one or more attributes.
These questions make the stakeholder salience model fairly dynamic and subject to
frequent change. Stakeholders may hold only one attribute today and acquire another
one or two attributes tomorrow.
Finally, in addition to the work of Mitchell et al. (1997), focusing on identifying and
evaluating the salience of stakeholders, other studies stand out as important within the
instrumental and descriptive perspectives according to Friedman and Miles (2006).
However, it is the work of Mitchell et al. (1997) that has proved to be of greatest
influence to the stakeholder theory literature.
6. The shortcomings of stakeholder theory
Following its original proposition, stakeholder theory underwent rapid growth in the
1990s with a lot of research ongoing and its adoption by researchers in the
organizational field. These works looked at a series of facets and expanded the theorys
popularity among both academics and management practitioners. Nevertheless, some
questions still remain. Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, it may
be stated that the theory was commonly deployed but, on the other hand, in theoretical
terms, there was very little progress and the current reality of stakeholder theory
demonstrates that little changed in the last decade. Furthermore, that means a series of
shortcomings still need resolution particularly regarding aspects involving the
theoretical formulation in itself, the normative, descriptive and instrumental
approaches, the application of theory to organizational realities and the development
of the theoretical body of work.
One of the main questions raising discussions around stakeholder theory is not
criticism of the Theory in itself but rather targets the content of the term stakeholder,
which is essentially relatively vague (Jones and Wicks, 1999). Clarkson (1994) had
earlier observed that terms such as stakeholders, stakeholder models, stakeholder
management and stakeholder theory were defined and used in different ways and in
different approaches and correspondingly based on a diverse range of evidence and
contradictory arguments, as already mentioned above in relation to the stakeholder
concept.
Another relevant question for Key (1999) is that Freeman (1984) focused on the
technical rather than the theoretical. The presentation of identifiable actors provides a
valuable strategic tool, which was one of his intentions, but he did not provide a
theoretical base that was appropriate for explaining either the behavior of the company
or that of individual actors, whether internal or external. He then correctly asserts that
the economic model does not describe company behavior with any precision and
provides no alternative beyond rethinking the company as an entity converting
resources influenced by and influencing both internal and external actors. According to
Key (1999), stakeholder theory does not adequately explain the process, makes an
incomplete interlinking between the internal and external variables, does not pay
enough attention to the system within which companies operate as well as those levels
of analysis within the system, and also inappropriately evaluates the environment. In
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the perspective of Voss et al. (2005), stakeholder theory does not respond to the needs or
demands of stakeholders given that these are dynamic, latent or difficult to discern.
As regards the original proposal, the questions left open and the suggestions for
refinements cover some ground. One question discussed within stakeholder theory is
that Freeman (1984) put forward a new framework nevertheless lacking any logic of
development or the causality that would serve to connect the variables and does not
provide any form of testing or predicting the behavior of either the company or that of
external actors. The first steps to identify this logic were the work of Donaldson and
Dunfee (1994) and Jones (1995). They proposed social contract theory as being at the
core of relationships with stakeholders, similar to the logic explaining the relationship
between managers and shareholders within the scope of economics even if there has
been little subsequent development to the work of the aforementioned authors.
Furthermore, Freeman (1984) included an incomplete connection between actors
and between internalities and externalities. Despite failing to identify the internal and
external interest groups, simply left incomplete, he provided for unlimited connections
between these groups and individual actors. To this end, an actor may be a member of
a variety of groups; hence, an employee may be a member of internal interest groups,
shareholders and employees, and external stakeholder groups, such as professional
and consumer organizations, environmental activist associations, parent or other
community action entities (Hsueh et al., 2010; Wegner et al., 2010). To try and resolve
this, Rowley (1997) suggested stakeholder networks. Freeman also describes
relationships as if some kind of network, suggesting an even still greater complexity
(Rowley, 1998). However, there has been no empirical evaluation of this.
Within this line, the Freeman (1984) model suggests that stakeholder groups may be
clearly identified as separate entities, which would lead to a loss of complexity in their
real relationships (Rowley, 1997). It may be the case that stakeholder groups cannot be
clearly identified but the interests represented by the groups (internal versus external)
are susceptible to due identification (Connelly, 2010; Mas-Verdu et al., 2010). Hence, the
interests may prove to be the critical variable, and not the interested parties in
themselves. Donaldson and Preston (1995) have argued in favor of stakeholders being
identified by their interests although this position has not gained any consensus in the
literature.
Another question posed by Key (1999) refers to the fact that stakeholder theory
incorrectly approaches the environment as something static, focused upon the
company and made up only of stakeholder groups. Considering that the system and
processes sustaining the system are not totally overcome, the company image at any
specific time is fixed. Therefore, the element of change that takes place over time is not
explainable through recourse to Freemans (1984) model with very few propositions for
the resolution of this problem having been put forward thus far. While part of the
strategic management approach set out by this author includes evaluating the
environment for the identification of stakeholder groups, there is no provision for
understanding how to manage change. Curiously, the work of Freeman (1984) is based
on his own evaluation of climate change and how this impacted upon the company to
such an extent that it became necessary to respond to groups other than shareholders.
One contribution towards this thinking was made by Rowley (1998), who used network
analysis to evaluate the environmental influence on the relationship between a
company and its stakeholders.
From another line of rationale, more philosophical, Antonacopoulou and Meric

(2005) concluded that stakeholder theory is more of an ideological product than
something scientific. They considered that the theory in question is based upon
psychology and socialization and preaches more moral behavior to market
organizations as a counterbalance to capitalism and the financial and economic
objectives of firms. They point to the lack of scientific thoroughness in the propositions
set out by stakeholder theory researchers. Much of the theory is presented in very
utilitarian terms, trusting in Kantian ideas and attributing intrinsic value to the
stakeholder (Martin et al., 2010). The theory lacks the production of knowledge able to
explain the complex and multi-faceted social relationships between the company and
its stakeholders (Melia et al., 2010; Un and Montoro-Sanchez, 2010).
Within the same context, Stoney and Winstanley (2001) label stakeholder theory as
in fact being a political pluralism theory. Adopting a Marxist criticism of pluralism,
these authors argue that this theory supplies an excessively simplistic
conceptualization of power as a good that may be negotiated between the
organization and the groups of stakeholder and, therefore, very limited in its
explanation of the means by which different stakeholder group interests emerge and
are generated by society. Without the capacity to distinguish between the divergent
organizational stakeholder interests, stakeholder theory may easily be subverted to a
unitary concept (Bonet et al., 2010; Comeche and Loras, 2010).
Stieb (2009) complemented this in affirming that the pretensions of stakeholder
theorists as to their theory evolving to replace capitalist theories were unfounded. It is
simply not possible to create value for all stakeholders in any equalitarian fashion
(distributive justice). This author holds that stakeholder theory has not proven a solution
for the economic ills afflicting society. Given this, and taking into consideration the
positions of Stoney and Winstanley (2001), Antonacopoulou and Meric (2005), Stieb
(2009) and Sanyang and Huang (2010), we may thus perceive of the need to define
stakeholder theory within the field of organizational management and avoid the theory
spilling over into other fields such as philosophy, sociology and psychology.
These critical questions, involving philosophical and theoretical points of view,
were closely analyzed and broadly commented upon in the scientific literature
(Donaldson and Dunfee, 1994; Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Weiss, 1995; Sternberg,
1996; Key, 1999; Moore, 1999; Gibson, 2000; Kaler, 2003; Fassin, 2008; Rubalcaba et al.,
2010). There have also been attempts to integrate the theory into research from
different areas so as to advance the state of stakeholder theory (Jawahar and
McLaughlin, 2001; Andriof et al., 2002; Venkataraman, 2002; Koelling et al., 2010;
Sebora and Theerapatvong, 2010). Nevertheless, much work still remains to be done.
According to Fassin (2009), a juridical interpretation, strengthening the
philosophical input, based upon rights and contracts means stakeholders have
demands and companies have obligations and duties. On the other hand, the
managerial approach, stemming from organizational theory and sociology, is more
pragmatic and emphasizes the relational aspects between interested parties and the
company. These two opposing visions of the stakeholder concept reflect totally
different questions. This mixture, in constant evolution, overlapping and combining
utilizations of both definitions (Kaler, 2003), has boosted the perception of uncertainty
surrounding the model and demanding theoreticians take up their positions as regards
which problem they aim to resolve.
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Specifically, from the instrumental perspective, according to Sternberg (1999), the

meaning and applicability of the stakeholder doctrine depends on what is involved in
balancing out the benefits generated. Nevertheless, this idea has also come in for
critical analysis. First, stakeholder theory does not provide any orientation as regards
how to benefit all parties equally and justly. Were all stakeholders able to affect or be
affected by the organization, the number of groups whose benefits were to be included
in the calculation would be infinite. For any balance to be reached, the number or type
of stakeholder would have to be restricted in some way or another (Ramrez et al., 2010;
Tihula and Huovinen, 2010). However, stakeholder theory at this stage does not
provide any orientation as to the way in which stakeholder groups should be selected
or defined.
Remaining with instrumental issues, the stakeholder model structure visually
illustrates the relationships between the different groups of actors surrounding a
company. However, it is necessary to be aware that all representations, models and
layouts are social constructions that inevitably simplify and reduce reality. This
observation naturally holds valid for stakeholder theory (Pesqueux and Damak-Ayadi,
2005) as well. The recent literature on the theme puts forward an impressive range of
perfections and improvements but there still lacks a clarification and thorough
definition of the models nature ( Jones and Wicks, 1999; Lepineux, 2005).
Also questioning the model, Carroll and Buchholtz (2006) highlight the reciprocal
interaction between stakeholders and society. The stakeholder model graphically
represents the relationship between the stakeholders and the company by means of a
bi-directional arrow. These arrows depict not only a relationship, but also express
dependence and reciprocity (Tortosa-Edo et al., 2010). The relationships between them
are reciprocal given that each may impact on the other in terms of losses and gains as
well as rights and duties (Evan and Freeman, 1988). However, not all relationships are
equal: the intensity of interaction in each direction might be quite different depending
on the power and the sensitivity to influence (Post et al., 2002; Phillips, 2003). The
intensity may be seen as a point on a continuum and this may be expressed in different
arrow widths, as in a sociogram, with possible width differences in either direction, a
solution uncommon to studies on stakeholder theory.
Complementarily and as already observed, one interpretation of stakeholder theory
incorrectly perceives that a company should take into account the aspirations of all
participants and that they should all be treated equally, independent of the fact that
some clearly contribute more than others to the organization (Gioia, 1999; Marcoux,
2003; Phillips, 2004; Tortosa-Edo et al., 2010). However, the management of
stakeholders does not imply that executives have to focus equal quantities of attention
on each of their components (Dentchev and Heene, 2003; Chamberlin et al., 2010;
Devlin, 2010). In the stakeholder categories, the level of attention and obligation may
vary (Mitchell et al., 1997; Phillips, 2003; Neville et al., 2004). However, the original
graphical representation of the stakeholder model may be at the root of this erroneous
interpretation of equality among all stakeholders given how, for reasons of simplicity
and clarity, each stakeholder category is attributed a symbol (oval or rectangular) of
identical size. Perhaps, to better reflect reality, symbols of different sizes, shapes and
intensities are needed in accordance with the relative importance of the respective
participant categories (Fassin, 2008). These examples do demonstrate that the
literature requires a new and more robust model.
In addition to questioning of the model, the application and usage of stakeholder

theory also raises doubts. For example, Jensen (2002) calls into question the theory
relating to two aspects: the non-specific Theory on how managers should handle
conflictual interests, with a lack of objective criteria for decision making and
performance evaluation, and the impossibility of an organization attaining success when
chasing multiple objectives as inherently attempting to achieve many objectives
simultaneously corresponds to having no overall objective. Companies adopting
stakeholder theory, in general, experience managerial confusion, conflict, inefficiencies
and even a weakening of the corporation (Abreu et al., 2010; Martinez-Gomez et al., 2010).
Taking a similar line, Dufrene and Wong (1996) question the validity of stakeholder
theory for its failure to provide clear management objectives. Baggio and Cooper (2010)
maintain that stakeholder interests are frequently mutually incompatible, a fact
necessarily preventing any clear decision by the management. This same position was
used by Stieb (2009), who criticized the power sharing defended by Freeman (2002,
2008). The author questioned just how you might face suppliers, the local community
and clients as management and in control of the organization? This would seem, at the
minimum, unviable.
Another doubt as to the practical application of stakeholder theory was posed by
the work of Sundaram and Inkpen (2004). These authors defend the purpose of the
company being the maximization of shareholder value. Hence, they criticize studies
calling for the needs of multiple stakeholders to be met with the objective of gaining
competitive advantages as is the case, for example, with the works by Jones (1995),
Donaldson and Preston (1995), and Altman (1998) and Mathew (2010). Sundaram and
Inkpen (2004) emphasized that the relationship between stakeholders and company
performance is either refutable or inconclusive in various empirical works, with the
studies by Griffin and Mahon (1997), Agle et al. (1999), Berman et al. (1999) identified,
among others. Hence, more research on the relationship between stakeholder
management and organizational performance is clearly needed.
Finally, according to Key (1999), stakeholder theory does not meet the requirements
of a scientific theory. Trevino and Weaver (1999) stressed that despite progress there
has yet to be any theoretical convergence between the instrumental, descriptive and
normative perspectives even taking into account the efforts of research in this field,
such as that of Jones and Wicks (1999). According to Trevino and Weaver (1999), there
is a lack of sufficient empirical evidence.
Furthermore, as Lepineux (2005) affirmed, stakeholder theory is affected by
countless problems and imperfections. In summary, they are:
.
the definition of its object of study remains controversial;
.
the stakeholder spectrum and its classification is variable;
.
the balancing of their respective interests causes problems;
.
there is a lack of solid normative foundations;
.
the normative and empirical flows are very commonly separated; and
.
the role and the positioning of civil society as a stakeholder is neither clear nor
precise.
Considering these aspects, many authors doubt whether stakeholder theory justifies its
status as a theory, a position taken by Trevino and Weaver (1999), for example.
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Considering the questions and issues set out here, it may safely be said that there is
still much to do. Despite being a still relatively recent theory, it has gained in
popularity and attracted the interest of researchers in countless areas. These criticisms
serve only to help in fostering the development of stakeholder theory, over time
moving towards the status representing a new paradigm for the organizational field.
According to Friedman and Miles (2006), any attempt to converge around a justified
and consistent theory remains premature. There are questions to resolve, such as
stakeholder focused decision making processes (which to choose?), the managerial
structure appropriate to focusing on stakeholders, the role of intermediaries in this
relational interaction, the real legitimacy of stakeholders, the means of relating and
interacting between the organization and each of its stakeholders. These are the
questions worthy of the attention of researchers in this field.
7. Conclusion: a suggested research agenda
Out of this analysis of the literature, it may be understood that stakeholder theory has
spilled over into different fields. According to Carroll (1994), the theory holds relevance
to strategic management, marketing, production, financial management, human
resource management, research and development, organizational ethics, corporative
governance, business performance, healthcare management, information technology
system management, among others. Although not the leading theory in any of these
fields, stakeholder theory provides a means of combining ethical questions with
complex operational environments and encapsulating details within a general vision.
That is, this is a theory that proves its relevance to organizations in general terms,
nevertheless, as explained above, further research of an empirical nature is required,
especially descriptive approaches (Friedman and Miles, 2006). Such empirical and
descriptive research would enable the organizational reality to be cross-referenced with
the theoretical assumptions. The sheer quantity of shortcomings presented here
suggests that the theoretical approach remains within the domain of supposition with
many of the assumptions underlying stakeholder theory never subject to testing, which
has led researchers into raising doubts as to the validity of this theoretical approach, as
presented above.
Therefore, it becomes important to seek out solutions (qualitative and quantitative)
to the diverse questions raised by research into stakeholder theory. Correspondingly
one natural option involves systematizing issues critical to the theory and developing a
research agenda that seeks to respond to the aforementioned imperfections.
As regards the formulation of stakeholder theory, one question requiring resolution
is that of the stakeholder term itself. The profusion of definitions hinders
understanding as to what the term actually represents. Establishing boundaries to
the concept would go a long way towards resolving a series of issued posed by
researchers in this field. Might it prove feasible that company objectives serve to guide
the definition of these boundaries? In accordance with a unified concept of the
stakeholder term, the theoretical approach referred to here would render conceptual
clarity and an enhanced definition, generating important academic interpretations (and
better focused research) and practices (better management understanding as to who
their stakeholders actually are). As a guideline for empirical research (or for practical
applications), prior to embarking on stakeholder theory field research, academics
should determine the individuals under analysis understand the term. One of the
problems encountered by researchers in relation to this theory relates to the different

(where not erroneous) perceptions of the term stakeholder. Staging focus groups may
aid in unifying understandings as to the concept.
Further research would focus on the boundaries as to what constitutes a group of
stakeholders as well as defining the criteria for attributing individual membership to
one or another group. This definition should justify the logic binding the variables in
addition to clarifying the criteria adopted for choosing one or another stakeholder as
the main beneficiary of a specific organizational action in contrast to conceiving as to
how to benefit all equally, which does not, after all, seem a feasible objective. Clearly
defining what makes up a stakeholder group may focus not only academic research but
also its deployment within the business environment. In this case, the proposal put
forward by Rowley (1997) emerges as the most logical with its interest based
stakeholder groups rather than definitions around individuals. For example, a specific
individual might simultaneously be an organizational client and supplier. The person
remains the same even where his/her interests differ. Thus, in practice, from the
organizational perspective, stakeholder groups are collective individual interests and
not specifically the individuals themselves.
A more critical aspect of stakeholder theory is its theoretical mixture. This clearly
demonstrates the lack of demarcation to its theoretical borders and which results in the
theory being misrepresented as a technique or even as a support tool for other theories.
Thus, researching and determining the actual extent of stakeholder theory,
particularly in taking this approach as an organizational theory rather than as an
ideological or political concept, might result in an important contribution for academics
and practitioners in this field. Complementarily, the static conception of the
surrounding environment also needs dealing with. Correspondingly, within the scope
of the theory, dynamism needs to be introduced into this external environment. Hence,
stakeholder theory needs defining as a theory and not as some aggregation of
suppositions with diverse connotations. Thus, descriptive research may prove able to
ascertain the scope of the theory.
As regards the instrumental question, the main utilization of stakeholder theory by
management professionals, new models need proposing and that are capable of
answering the various challenges set out by Carroll and Buchholtz (2006), and Fassin
(2008, 2009), among others. Despite the discussions regarding the graphical
representation of stakeholder theory, there is a shortage of proposed models dealing
with aspects such as stakeholder homogeneity, their respective independence, among
other criticisms set out above. Some proposals are already to be found in the literature
(Fassin, 2008, 2009), nevertheless, they have yet to stake their claim as the most robust
stakeholder theory model. After all, they have yet to be subject to empirical testing.
Furthermore, model focused research may also open up avenues for the resolution of
many other critical theoretical issues, especially through the empirical testing of new
models. Any new stakeholder theory model would certainly bring progress towards
resolving some of the weaknesses set out here, especially should such a model derive
from a unified definition of the stakeholder conceptual. Furthermore, the main facet to
the company and each of its stakeholders would appear to be the mutual influence
ongoing between the parties. This factor might yet prove the foundations for a new
model.
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For practical theoretical applications, research, especially descriptive analysis,

needs to focus on aspects such as the ongoing relationships, conflicts of interest
between stakeholders and management difficulties in coping with multiple objectives
(decision making, structures, intermediaries, etc.). Research into how differing actors,
when belonging to different groups, reconcile their interests (which may be divergent)
is essential. Furthermore, as it is highly difficult to deal with everyone, we clearly need
recommendations on how to attribute relevance to stakeholders, as is the case with the
stakeholder salience model (Mitchell et al., 1997), thereby contributing to the practical
application of this theory despite the long standing lack of thorough empirical testing.
It is perfectly feasible that the model proves to have little practical utility. Indeed,
measuring power, legitimacy and urgency represents a challenging task and subject to
doubts, as proven by Agle et al. (1999) in their application of the stakeholder salience
model where the results obtained registered divergences between the theoretical model
and the organizational reality. In addition, more studies are necessary on how to relate
good stakeholder management to organizational performance. Perhaps the most
effective theoretical application might actually be in public or non-profit organizations
rather than the private sector (Beach, 2009).
Finally, the need for research that systematizes the knowledge produced should be
highlighted with the objective of attaining the theoretical convergence necessary for
the development of stakeholder theory. There is clearly a very significant body of work
across a range of areas but they have not yet been gathered and collectively analyzed
in order to extract the conclusions and adjustments necessary for delimitating and
advancing the theory.
In summary, it is necessary to attain consistency within the normative stakeholder
theory perspective, overcoming its still incipient phase of development in terms of its
descriptive capacities while validating and broadening the descriptive base supporting
the normative perspective. This holds particular relevance given the descriptive
perspective may drive changes in the actual normative perspective itself. However,
there is much road ahead of us. We particularly need to focus efforts on definitively
establishing the foundations of stakeholder theory, which does nevertheless prove a
theoretically relevant approach both in organizational and in social terms.
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About the authors
Emerson Wagner Mainardes is a PhD student at the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilha,
Portugal. His academic background includes a Masters degree in Management, with a
specialization in Educational Management (FURB, 2007), and a degree in Electrical Engineering.
He is a teacher and researcher in management. He is a Research Fellow at Nucleo de Estudos em
Ciencias Empresariais (NECE). His areas of interest include Educational Management and
Services Marketing. Emerson Wagner Mainardes is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: emerson.wm@sapo.pt or emainardes@kesservice.com.br
Helena Alves is an Assistant Professor at the University of Beira Interior, Portugal. She has a
PhD in Management and she has been doing research in the area of educational marketing. She
has published some articles on this topic in The Service Industries Journal, Total Quality
Management and International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing. She is Managing
Editor of International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing. Her areas of interest include
educational marketing, services marketing and relationship marketing.
Mario Raposo has a PhD in Management and is a Full Professor in the Management and
Economic Department at University of Beira Interior, where he is also Scientific Coordinator of
the Research Unit in Business Science and of the PhD Programme in Marketing and Strategy. He
teaches subjects in the area of marketing, strategy and entrepreneurship. In the recent past he
was Vice Rector of the University and Head of the Liaison Office. He has been the Chairman of
international conferences and has coordinated studies with significant impact. He published
several papers, as author or co-author, in several international journals and belongs to editorial
boards. Mario Raposo is currently Portugal Vice President of the European Council of Small
Business.
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Management Decision

Stakeholder theory: issues to resolve

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About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com

Stakeholder theory: issues to

Center for Studies in Management Science,

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groups may influence or be influenced by the scope of organizational objectives.

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the theory focuses upon management decision making;

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Corporate social responsibility is not considered a formalized theoretical group but

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of communication followed by the later heightening of social pressures applied by

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to which managers attribute priority to competing stakeholder requests stretches

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From another line of rationale, more philosophical, Antonacopoulou and Meric

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Specifically, from the instrumental perspective, according to Sternberg (1999), the

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In addition to questioning of the model, the application and usage of stakeholder

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problems encountered by researchers in relation to this theory relates to the different

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For practical theoretical applications, research, especially descriptive analysis,

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Buchholz, R. and Rosenthal, S. (2005), Toward a contemporary conceptual framework for

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Pesqueux, Y. and Damak-Ayadi, S. (2005), Stakeholder theory in perspective, Corporate

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Sebora, T. and Theerapatvong, T. (2010), Corporate entrepreneurship: a test of external and

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