Stakeholder Management: a Systematic Literature Review
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Stakeholder management: a systematic literature review Matteo Pedrini and Laura Maria Ferri Matteo Pedrini is based at Abstract Universita` Cattolica del Purpose – The stakeholder theory is a prominent management approach that has primarily been Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. adopted in the past few years. Despite the increase in the theory’s use, a limited number of studies have Laura Maria Ferri is discussed ways to develop, execute and measure the results of using this strategic approach with Assistant Professor at stakeholders. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by conducting a systematic review of the stakeholder management process. Universita` Cattolica del Design/methodology/approach – Five databases were selected to search articles published from Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. 1985 to 2015. The keywords used were stakeholder management, stakeholder relationship and stakeholder engagement. Starting from 2,457 articles identified using a keyword search, 33 key journal articles were systematically reviewed using both bibliometric and qualitative methods for analysis. Findings – The results highlight that stakeholder management is increasingly embedded in corporate activities, and that the coming of the internet, social networking and Big Data have put more pressure on companies to develop new tools and techniques to manage stakeholders online. In conclusion, synthesizing the findings and developed framework allows the understanding of different streams of research and identifies future steps for research. Originality/value – While literature reviews are a widespread practice in business studies, only a few more recent reviews use the systematic review methodology that aggregates knowledge using clearly defined processes and criteria. This is the first review on stakeholder management in which the structure is existing knowledge on strategy development, execution and the measurement of performance. Keywords Stakeholder management, Systematic review, Stakeholder engagement, Stakeholder relationship Paper type Literature review Introduction The past century has seen increased attention around stakeholders in both the academic and the managerial contexts. The stakeholder concept was first introduced by a memo of the Stanford Research Institute in 1963, and it referred to “those groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist.” Since then, the definition has evolved and increasingly moved toward more active and influencing relationships between stakeholders and firms. Thus, some scholars have focused their attention on the influence that companies and stakeholders could exert on each other (Savage, 1991; Freeman, 1984), while others have underlined the juridical relationship (Carroll, 1989; Donaldson and Preston, 1995) or the role in the value-creation process (Clarkson, 1995; Freeman, 1994). It is, however, the seminal work by Freeman in 1984 that determined a turning point. The author proposed a view of a firm as the convergence of interests and expectations that needed to be considered and integrated into the firm’s strategy. Since then, the attention has moved to stakeholder management (SM) and focused on the methods through which Received 27 July 2017 firms could build and organize relationships with the different stakeholders to improve their Revised 9 August 2017 ability to respond to their expectations (Habisch et al.,2011). More recent developments 30 March 2018 Accepted 28 June 2018 have started to consider how SM relates to firm performance, investigating how the PAGE 44 j CORPORATE GOVERNANCE j VOL. 19 NO. 1 2019, pp. 44-59, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 DOI 10.1108/CG-08-2017-0172 understanding of stakeholders’ claims could serve business objectives (Rana¨ngen and Zobel, 2014; Heikkurinen and Bonnedahl, 2013; Matos and Silvestre, 2013). In addition, SM has gained increasing attention among practitioners. The growing importance is mainly driven by the escalating stakeholders’ awareness of the impacts related to the business activity and by the need to demonstrate a commitment to good business behaviors. Moreover, it is becoming more and more evident to managers that SM makes good business sense and leads to better performance. In light of these advancements, this article presents the results of a systematic literature review, which offers a comprehensive view of the published works on SM. Earlier efforts have mainly adopted a narrow and specific perspective, thus extending the knowledge about the various facets of SM. However, an integrated examination of SM is missing, which is what this work aims to achieve through a novel broader perspective. To meet this objective, 2,457 articles have been searched, and 33 of them have been selected using a keyword search that allowed SM in for-profit organizations to be emphasized. The review was run using both bibliometric and qualitative methods. In so doing, the paper contributes to the literature, as it delineates the state-of-the-art of the studies on SM, proposes a structured outline and identifies possible future directions of study. The aspiration is to contribute to promoting greater efforts in both research and practice. The remainder of the article is structured as follows. The next section builds the theoretical framework around the definition of SM to identify the main elements that constituted the base for the analysis. Afterwards, the research methods that guided the work are described, and the results of the systematic review are presented through descriptive and thematic analyses. The article ends with the discussion of results and suggestions for future developments, and limitations are proposed. Stakeholder management: theoretical background SM has its roots in the stakeholder theory, formalized by Freeman in 1984. According to this theory, profit maximization is not the sole objective of the business activity, but equilibrium among stakeholders’ expectations is identified as the necessary condition for the survival and success of the firm in the mid-long term (Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Clarkson, 1995; Post et al., 2002). Although originally considered opposed to the shareholder view (Friedman, 1970), the debate has more recently moved away from the idea that stakeholders and shareholders’ satisfaction are competing objectives, in favor of a view in which they are mutually beneficial (Berman et al., 1999). To reach equilibrium, firms cannot rely on the spontaneous growth of stakeholder relationships, but they need to develop a managerial approach through which to establish durable and sustainable ties (Freeman, 1999). In this sense, a firm must commit to develop a wide network of relationships – not limited to shareholders, employees or clients – and invest in nurturing them to make them relentlessly more effective (Perrini and Tencati, 2006). Extant literature links SM to both economic and normative rationales. As far as the former is concerned, previous studies defined SM as a system that helps an organization improve decision-making (Freeman and Evan, 1990; De Colle, 2005; Kaltoft et al.,2007)or accountability process (Bowman et al.,1992; Campbell et al.,2006; Scott et al.,2003). Again, some scholars mainly focused on the opportunity to reduce risks (Fama, 1970; Godfrey et al.,2009; Graves and Waddock, 1994) or to strengthen one’s reputation and trusting relationships (Barringer and Harrison, 2000; Fischer and Reuber, 2007; Jones, 1995). The normative rationale instead looks at SM as a system motivated by the firm’s moral orientation and institutional view (Friedman and Miles, 2006; Jones and Wicks, 1999), its commitment to respect property rights and social contracts (Phillips, 2003; Freeman and Evan, 1990; Donaldson and Preston, 1995), to contribute to the common good (Argandon˜a, 1998), or to promote principles of equitable justice (Phillips, 1997; Clarkson, 1995). VOL. 19 NO. 1 2019 j CORPORATE GOVERNANCE j PAGE 45 According to these considerations, the present literature review considers SM the continuous and systematic process through which a firm establishes positive and constructive relationships with its stakeholders to integrate their expectations into business strategy and activity (Habisch et al.,2011; De Colle, 2005). Research methods Method This research is based on systematic review methodology (Fink, 1998; Thorpe et al., 2005; Tranfield et al.,2003), which differs from conventional reviews in that it is transparent, focused equal and accessible and allows for the unification of research and practitioner communities, leading to overall synthesis (Thorpe et al.,2005). A systematic review points out the most significant gaps, contributing to theory development (Tranfield et al., 2003). For this study, systematic review methodology was applied to SM in for-profit firms. Using the process used by Seuring et al. (2005) and Klewitz and Hansen (2014), the systematic literature review will consist of six procedural steps. Each step is illustrated in Table I and described in further detail below. Search process: Steps 1-4 Step 1. The keywords for the search were composed of three definitions obtained from the theoretical discussion above. Domains of research were operationalized through three keyword clouds, namely, stakeholder (e.g. stakeholder and interested party), management (e.g. management, integration and involvement) and for-profit (e.g. business and firm). Overall, a total of 18 keywords were used (Table II). Target articles needed to match at least one word in each cloud. This review