Stakeholder engagement: Past, present, and future

The purpose of our article is to clarify the construct of stakeholder engagement to unfold the full potential of stakeholder engagement research. We conduct a literature review on 90 articles in leading academic journals focusing on stakeholder engagement in the business and society, management and strategy, and environmental management and environmental policy literatures. We present a descriptive analysis of stakeholder engagement research for a 15-year period, and we identify the moral, strategic, and pragmatic components of stakeholder engagement as well as its aims, activities, and impacts. Moreover, we offer an inclusive stakeholder engagement definition and provide a guide to organizing the research. Finally, we complement the current understanding with a largely overlooked dark side of stakeholder engagement. Through the contributions of the article, in CICAT project, we can examine the moral, strategic, and pragmatic components of stakeholder engagement as well as its aims, activities, and impacts in practice and in the context of a circular economy.

Authors:
Johanna Kujala, Tampere University
Sybille Sachs, HWZ University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich
Heta Leinonen, Tampere University
Anna Heikkinen, Tampere University
Daniel Laude, HWZ University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich

Published: Business & Society

Potential beneficiaries of the results: Ministries, companies, research and development organizations, cities and municipalities and stakeholders.

More information:
Heta Leinonen
heta.leinonen@tuni.fi