Stakeholder Management: Sustain License to Operate Through Stakeholder Engagement

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to attempt a short but comprehensive record of the connection between sustainable development and stakeholders, to present the basic theoretical base on the topic, while describing fundamental principles of stakeholder management and means of relative engagement. The core assumption of this chapter is that corporate responsibility is perceived as the responsibility of an organisation to act in the interest of legitimate organizational stakeholders. Although stakeholder engagement is not a new concept, it is accepted as crucial to an organization’s sustainability and success. For those reasons, the chapter focuses on the strategic approach of stakeholder management while describing briefly some important steps in implementing stakeholder engagement. The final section of the chapter focuses on the future of stakeholder engagement as well as on related risks that may arise for non-engagers.