A strategic perspective on stakeholder management

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an instrumental argumentation of stakeholder theory by discussing stakeholder theory from a strategic perspective. Our analysis does not use moral or ethical arguments in order to provide a purely instrumental rationale for stakeholder management. Such a rationale appears feasible, as companies are resource dependent on their stakeholders. This argument was articulated earlier in the stakeholder management literature, but it was deemed only appropriate for the so-called primary stakeholders. Secondary stakeholders deserve, in our opinion, instrumental managerial attention as well as a consequence of stakeholder dynamics and of cognitive limitations of managers