Stakeholder responsiveness and business performance

Scanning both the academic and popular business literature of the last 40 years in a search for indications of how to be most successful in business must leave any reader in a puzzled state of mind. "Being close to the customer", efficient consumer response, Total Quality Management, shareholder value maximization, lean management, focusing on core competencies, management reward systems or employee involvement programs, are but a few of the slogans and buzz-words introduced as means to reach top performance. The reason for this wide array of sometimes opposing ideas stems from different assumptions about the purpose of organizations, from different understandings about the concept of effectiveness and from opposing opinions which means are superior in attaining a given end. So far, little effort has been made to assess the various suggestions in an orderly manner. To do so, some framework is required to compare the various approaches that can be found. One possibility would be a classification of suggestions depending on the importance they attach to different constituencies in the firm's environment.