The Quest for Sustainable Development: Strategies for Managing Stakeholder Relationships

The aim of this paper is to describe how organizations manage their stakeholder relationships in order to achieve sustainable development that enhances economic, environmental, socio-culture, and political sustainability. This paper examines the concept of sustainable development from a stakeholder perspective. It is argued that the concept and practice of sustainable development is a contested area in the process of development because different people and groups have different stakes in what is meant by sustainable development. The paper discusses strategies for achieving sustainable development that meets its four criteria: economic, environmental, socio-cultural and political sustainability through stakeholder management. The study apply three cases of stakeholder management and used them to analyzed and “interpret” the relationship between an organization’s ability to manage its stakeholder relationships and to achieve sustainable growth and development this is great contribution to existing knowledge in field of stakeholder management in an organization The main point of departure and the argumentation that follows is that a model derived from the principles underlying stakeholder theory will help improve relationships among organizations, management and the local communities in order to achieve development (environmental, economic, socio-cultural and political) that is sustainable. Finally, the paper recommends strategies for designing sustainable development from a stakeholder approach.. Keywords: Sustainable development, stakeholder management, environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, socio-cultural sustainability and political sustainability