Stakeholder management: a case of its related capability and performance

Abstract

Purpose– A central claim of stakeholder theory is that the purpose of business is to create value for various stakeholders. However, managing diverse interests of stakeholders can be challenging in a business environment entrenched with different value systems. Lacking of qualitative narratives and complicated nature of corporate governance perhaps have impeded the stakeholder theory to become a major theory of strategic management and organizational ethics on its own. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the strategic values of stakeholder management.Design/methodology/approach– Three stakeholder management case studies, taken in the context of a large corporatized public organization, were conducted in attempting to amplify the underpinning theories of stakeholder identified by Laplumeet al.(2008). Tape-recorded semi-structured interviews were transcribed into texts. To reduce retrospective bias, some typical secondary records were examined.Findings– Stakeholder management can be a core competence that draws resource capabilities throughout a firm for generating desirable triple bottom line results, which also eases the tensions between shareholders and stakeholders of the firm.Research limitations/implications– Stakeholder management is an organizational mechanism tightly embedded in the firms’ strategic organizing and strategizing routines. It is vital for generating desirable triple bottom line results. This conjures up potential linkages between the stakeholder theory and the resource-based view (RBV) theory as pursuing stakeholder management can be a hard-to-emulate strategic asset within the framework of the RBV theory.Originality/value– There is relatively scant literature that pays attention on amplifying stakeholder management theory in the public sector organizations. Through the unlocking of some valuable public sector data sets, this research can make a positive contribution in the areas.