Part 4: Duties and Stakeholder Theory
58 What are the “take home” messages from this Part?
This Part offered a way to systematically think about those affected by business decisions, through stakeholder theory.
As we conclude this Part, several points are worth emphasizing.
- Stakeholder theory offers both a contrast, and complement, to traditional conceptions of fiduciary duties in business settings.
- Categorizing and prioritizing stakeholders may help aid business decision making
- The stakeholder retaliation threshold, or SRT, provides a way to consider the tipping point before which stakeholders react to CSR / ESG issues.
- The level of the SRT varies by industry, and by firm.
- We can characterize CSR / ESG issues according to the Zadek Civil Learning Model, which suggests ways in which companies respond to a variety of issues.
- Finally, we can integrate stakeholder and ethical analysis by letting stakeholder theory inform those affected in ethical decision making.
Exercises
- Do a Google News search for “stakeholder” and examine the results. What current opinions and perspectives do you find? Do you agree or disagree with these perspectives?
