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According to the shareholder approach, enterprises focus exclusively on one stakeholder: shareholders. This point of view received public awareness when Milton Friedman published an article in the New York Times stating: „there is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, (…) engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
Although this view was largely understood as legitimizing profit orientation irrespective of any other stakeholders, it triggered public discourse in the following years. Nowadays, Stakeholder Theory has gained broad acceptance. Since the discussion on the role of stakeholders started, the philosophy of strategic management changed from short-term profitability and only obeying the rules of the game to a more integrative approach, considering stakeholders and dealing with their needs.
A company is a socio-economic system. In this system, different groups with different interests come together and it is the task of management to balance their interests.
Each group makes its specific contributions to the company and makes claims on the company in return. According to the stakeholder model, management has the task to bring together the interests of the stakeholders in “peacemaking negotiations” and to allow all stakeholders to participate appropriately in the company’s actions and successes.
Carroll & Näsi (1997) describe stakeholders as “(…) any individual or group who affects or is affected by the organization and its processes, activities and functioning”. In contrast, Jones (1999) defines stakeholders as “(g)roups and individuals with the power to affect the firm’s performance and/or a stake in the firm’s performance”. Clarkson (cited from Friedman & Miles, 2006) adds that stakeholders also “(b)ear some form of risk as a result of having invested some sort of capital, human or financial, something of value, in a firm (…) (or) are placed at risk as a result of a firm’s activities. “
According to Starik’s (1993) point of view that stakeholders are “any naturally occurring entity that affects or is affected by organizational performance”, nature and environment can also be seen as stakeholders contributing to organizational performance and claiming a stake.
Concepts, such as the Tripple Bottom Line (Elkington), Sustainable Development, several CSR approaches and the Sustainable Development Goals, should guide organizations towards resilient and sustainable business behavior.
