Engaging With Stakeholders

A Relational Perspective on Responsible Business

Engaging with Stakeholders: A Relational Perspective on Responsible Business* *contends that meaningful and constructive stakeholder engagement efforts should be rooted in a deep relational process of shared understanding, expectations, and viewpoints, through honest, continued dialogue between stakeholders and company management. This anthology follows and reaffirms this view, which also establishes the increasing need to explore the subtleties of how companies can respectfully engage their stakeholders in ways that reflect the corporate strategy and contribute to the ongoing development of business activities and creation of value, for themselves and stakeholders, from social, environmental, and economic perspectives.

Stakeholder engagement practices, however, remain highly complex and difficult to manage; their ability to generate value in an inclusive way requires critical consideration. Sound stakeholder engagement efforts also constitute a keystone for responsible business activities.

Drawing on a wide range of literature and studies, this book addresses key dimensions of stakeholder engagement, through a responsible business lens, and thereby contributes to identifying the opportunities, challenges, and key organizational implications associated with their unfolding. The four main topics covered are:

• Delineating the nature and multiple raisons d’être of stakeholder engagement

• Dialogical and communicational foundations of stakeholder engagement

• Engaging with diverse stakeholders throughout the value chain

• Reaping organizational returns and relational rewards of stakeholder engagement efforts