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

Dr. Adam Lindgreen is Professor at Copenhagen Business School where he heads the Department of Marketing. He also is Extra Ordinary Professor at University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science. He has published in the California Management Review, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the Journal of World Business, among others.

Dr. François Maon is Associate Professor at IESEG School of Management. He received his PhD from the Catholic University of Louvain (Louvain School of Management). Dr. Maon has published in the California Management Review, the Journal of Business Ethics, and the International Journal of Management Reviews, among others.

Dr. Joëlle Vanhamme is a Professor at the Edhec Business School. Dr. Vanhamme received her PhD from the Catholic University of Louvain (Louvain School of Management). She has published in the California Management Review, Industrial Marketing Management, the International Journal of Research in Marketing, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, Psychology & Marketing, and Recherche et Applications en Marketing, amongst others.

Dr. Beatriz Palacios Florencio is Associate Professor at Pablo de Olavide University. Her main research focus is corporate social responsibility and tourism. She has published in the Journal of Business Research, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, Management Decision, and the Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, among others.

Dr. Christine Vallaster is Professor at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences where she heads the Marketing & Relationship Management section. She has published in the California Management Review, Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business Research, and the Journal of World Business, among others. She has also authored articles for the German edition of Harvard Business Manager.

Dr. Carolyn Strong is Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University’s Business School, where she teaches postgraduate marketing and ethical issues in marketing to undergraduate students. She received her PhD from the University of Wales. She has published in the Journal of Business Research, Marketing Letters, the European Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Advertising, among others. She is the editor of the Journal of Strategic Marketing.