Abstract
Gone are the days when it was accepted that shareholders were the ones for whose benefit business was done, and that the purpose of business was to maximize returns to shareholders. Today, it is universally accepted that a business has to look beyond maximizing profits. It has to take into account the needs all stakeholders, including the environment.
Several frameworks and approaches have been advocated to achieve the objective of optimizing the value of the corporation from multiple angles, including Triple Bottom Line, Responsible Business, Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, etc. At the heart of all these concepts is the issue of being fair to all stakeholders. While Stakeholder Management concepts and theories advocate that the concerns and perspectives of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, be taken into account while business decisions are made, in real-world operations, stakeholder management is done more from the perspective of ‘managing stakeholders’ so that the obstacles to the success of business are reduced, and profits can be maximized. But in the new world, where the world is striving for sustainability keeping environment, society and governance in mind, there needs to be a shift in both mindsets regarding stakeholder management, as well as managerial processes of stakeholder management.
The commentary outlines what some of the changes needed are, how some of the process changes can be made, and compares multiple approaches for managing for multiple stakeholders.
Date Received
September 24, 2024
Date Revised
December 3, 2024
Date Accepted
December 31, 2024
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Raghunathan, Meena and Liu, Kara Li
(2024)
"Moving from ‘Managing Stakeholders’ to ‘Managing for Stakeholders’: The Imperative for Responsible Business,"
Markets, Globalization & Development Review:
Vol. 9:
No.
3, Article 4.
DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2024-09-03-04
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr/vol9/iss3/4
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons, Development Studies Commons, Environmental Policy Commons, Political Economy Commons, Social Welfare Commons
Author Bio
Meena Raghunathan has worked in Sustainability Education, CSR and Community Development. A certified Social Auditor, her publications include Doing Good (Harper Collins), To Every Parent, To Every School (Penguin India), and textbooks including first textbook on Environment for Undergraduates in India, and policy documents. She teaches courses at postgraduate level on Sustainability, Responsibility, Ethics, and Social Entrepreneurship at MYRA School of Business.
Kara Li Liu is an assistant professor in the School of Business at Roger Williams University. She earned her Ph.D. in Business Analytics, Operations, and Supply Chain Management at the University of Rhode Island. Her research interests are in theory-based process design and data-driven analytics of supply chain management, information technology, and healthcare.