Stakeholder Engagement in Higher Education: State of the Art and Research Agenda

Abstract

Stakeholder engagement in higher education institutions has received, as a topic, increasing levels of attention, especially in today's landscape. While universities move towards a more sustainable future and reshape their relationship with their stakeholders, both internal and external, the body of academic research on the matter has increased exponentially in recent years. This article attempts to perform a systematic review of extant literature on stakeholder engagement among universities. In total, 53 distinct and relevant articles were found through various electronic databases, such as IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. Through a methodical screening protocol, featuring several inclusion, and exclusion criteria, this article presents four major themes of analysis, namely: the role of students as stakeholders and their peculiarities, modern methods of stakeholder engagement amid the digital era, sustainability reporting and sustainable development for universities, and organizational implications of stakeholder engagement. While some attempts to synthesize this specific literature stream have been made in the past, to the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to review recent relevant literature on stakeholder engagement in higher education.