Stakeholder theory(ies):
Ethical bases, managerial applications, conceptual limits

The stakeholder approach to management offers a theoretical framework that aims to widen the perspective from which corporate strategies are formulated, shifting the focus away from shareholders to all those who are in some relevant way involved in the business enterprise.

There exists both confusion and controversy about the concept of a stakeholder. It is, therefore, important to investigate the concepts and practices of stakeholder management, and to assess the prospects of giving determinate meaning to stakeholder ideas.

The essential nucleus of principles on which the stakeholder management theory (SMT) is based may not involve a specific normative core founded on comprehensive general ethical theory, but instead may involve a diverse variety of context-dependent principles.