Standing in for King Solomon: The Potential Contribution of Human Resource Management to the Implementation of the Stakeholder Approach

Abstract

Abstract Most contemporary theorists are in agreement that human resource management (HRM) has a special role to play in affecting the direction of organizational philosophy at the enterprise strategy level. Accordingly, the suggestion is made in this paper that HRM should spearhead the introduction of stakeholder management strategy concepts into organizational thinking and practices. Stakeholder management strategy can be defined as matching the organization's ‘values’ to the ‘values’ of its stakeholders and maximizing, over the long term, the net (social and economic) value added to society. The paper argues that HRM is potentially the best equipped, and strategically the best positioned, to anticipate, monitor and co-ordinate the effects of corporate policy on stakeholders' interests. It may thus serve as a major vehicle for mobilizing and maintaining the support of groups and individuals in the organization's internal and external environment who are parties to the social contract that legitimizes it...