This book is the companion to "Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking: Theory, Responsibility and Engagement", which examined many emerging theoretical and normative issues and was released to acclaim in October 2002. "Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2" collects a series of essays by leading researchers worldwide to focus on the practice of stakeholder engagement in terms of relationship management, communication, reporting and performance. As stakeholder relationships and business in society have become increasingly central to the unfolding of stakeholder thinking, important new topics have begun to take centre stage in both the worlds of practice and academia. The first part of the book makes clear that simply engaging with stakeholders is insufficient to build successful stakeholder strategies. Companies, considered as the focal entity in a relationship, also need to actively communicate with stakeholders and manage their relationships. Dialogue is essential but can only be useful if companies listen to the messages that stakeholders are sending them. It is also essential to understand the role of power and influence in stakeholder engagement strategies especially if partnerships or collaborations emerge from the relationships that are engendered. The book examines a wide range of corporate-NGO collaborations to determine what makes them effective - and what makes them fail. Conflict management in stakeholder alliances is also discussed. The second part of the book addresses the critically important element of emerging schemes for the assessment, measurement and reporting of business in society and relationships involving stakeholders. A variety of current approaches to stakeholder assessment and reporting are discussed here including social auditing and sustainability reporting. The evolution of stakeholder thinking has led to a new view of the firm as an organism embedded in a complex web of relationships with other organisms. The role of management becomes immensely more challenging, when stakeholders are no longer seen as simply the objects of managerial action but rather as subjects with their own objectives and purposes. This book captures the complexity of managing relationships with stakeholders and will provide both practitioners and researchers with a wealth of information on the benefits and consequences of this practice.

This book - the first of a two-volume series - argues that, today, stakeholder thinking has evolved into the study of interactive, mutually engaged and responsive relationships that establish the very context of doing modern business, and create the groundwork for transparency and accountability. This book makes it clear that in today's societies successful companies are those that recognize that they have responsibilities to a range of stakeholders that go beyond mere compliance with the law or meeting the fiduciary responsibility inherent in maximizing returns to shareholders. If in the past the focus was on enhancing shareholder value, now it is on engaging stakeholders for long-term value creation. The process of engagement creates a dynamic context of interaction, mutual respect, dialogue and change - not a one-sided "management" of stakeholders. Indeed, the authors believe the very term "stakeholder management" to be outdated and corporate-centric. Companies can manage their relationships with stakeholders, but frequently cannot actually manage the stakeholders themselves, because, as the activist and collaborative initiatives described in this volume suggest, company-stakeholder relationships are not one-way streets and different institutions bring different agendas, goals and priorities to the engagement. There are clear implications to the way in which stakeholder thinking is unfolding today. If in the past corporate "social" responsibility was simply seen as profitability plus compliance plus philanthropy, now responsible corporate citizenship - or corporate responsibility - means companies being more aware of and understanding the societies in which they operate. Corporate responsibility means recognising that day-to-day operating practices affect stakeholders and that it is in those impacts where responsibility lies, not merely in efforts to "do good". Companies are now faced with a wide array of challenges that mean that senior executives and managers need to be able to deal with issues including greater accountability, human rights abuses, sustainability strategies, corporate governance codes, workplace ethics, stakeholder consultation and management. Stakeholder thinking needs to capture these new realities. The global reach of multinational corporations has served to highlight the need for the (re)integration of business into society, relationships into stakeholder relations, and ethics into managerial practice. The rise in power of global activism involving NGOs, and global business involving multinational corporations, makes it even more critical today for companies to consider the power and interests of corporate stakeholders when developing strategic plans. The interactivity and mutuality of relationships described in this book make it clear that firms and stakeholders share the power and responsibility to influence both the profit potential of the firm and how the benefits of the firm's success impact on society. This important volume brings together leading academic thought on stakeholder thinking for the first time. Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking will be indispensable to corporate managers, NGOs and academics seeking greater understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder thinking in a world of rapidly changing responsibilities.A companion volume, Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2, focusing on practical issues such as relationship management, communication, reporting, and performance, is also available.