Can Stakeholder Mapping and Attributes be Exploited to the Advantage of Sustainability?

Abstract

The world is witnessing appreciable advancements in different spheres of life. However, an alarm is being raised in the way society consumes finite natural resources and how such unbridled behavior has affected the world around us. Therefore, business is being held to a higher level of accountability to ensure that we do not run out of those resources. Competition is at its peak as globalization gains more visibility despite the rise of nationalism. This is presenting both opportunities and challenges for business, but the consensus is that the world needs to rethink its production, consumption, and disposal processes. Today, concepts such as Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Business Ethics etc. have been resonating in the business community. At the center of this new paradigm is the growing need to incorporate stakeholders in business policies and practices. Lately, sustainability is being echoed in most organizations through policy changes on people, planet, and profit (3Ps). As the Shareholder Primacy Norm (SPN) is being relegated to the background, sustainability is becoming a major factor on the overall relationship between business and society. Therefore, its relevance can hardly be exaggerated. This paper focuses on stakeholder mapping and attributes, and how they can be harnessed to gain stakeholder commitment to sustainability matters. Experience demonstrates how some stakeholder groups have maximized power and urgency attributes to positively influence the supply chain management behavior of some multinational organizations and acknowledges the lack of homogeneity in different sectors of the economy. Essentially, the paper explores the transferability of such approaches in all sectors to promote and maintain sustainability. Additionally, it recognizes the increasing influence of stakeholders globally and tries to examine its relevance to the concept of sustainability as it shifts from ideology to an inevitable business longevity strategy. It decomposes the different perspectives in which stakeholder groups can be used to achieve sustainability by paying attention to the 3Ps. Some setbacks experienced by companies (especially the extractive industry) in their sustainability drive have been identified. The paper concludes by highlighting extant practices and gaps in business’ approach to sustainability from both developing and less-developed nations dimension. Furthermore, it establishes a relationship between the institutional environment and embrace of sustainability. Finally, it makes recommendations that are driven by stakeholder attributes to the required awareness in the production, consumption, and disposal of goods.

Keywords: 3Ps, Business Ethics, CSR, Stakeholder, Sustainability