Implementing the stakeholder view : learning process towards a changed stakeholder orientation

The stakeholder view of the corporation holds that the capacity of a business enterprise is to generate long-term value, which depends on critical stakeholders. This paper proposes a learning framework to explain why and how firms adopt a broader respectively changed stakeholder orientation or why they do not. Therefore, insights gained by a former research project will be updated and extended (see Post et al. 2002b). Using concepts from organizational evolution, a dynamic three-stage frame-work will be developed in order to analysed the paths of a firm's stakeholder orientation in practice and over longer periods of time. Preliminary results from case studies of three large and complex firms are used to illustrate the development of propositions and show first empirical evidence that the framework works in identifying generic learning processes and longitudinally capturing the development of stakeholder management in practic