ABSTRACT
There is much that is useful in Jones and Wicks' proposal for a "convergent stakeholder theory." First of all, they detail a wide spectrum of agreement by those who are stakeholder theorists. Second, they rightly emphasize so-called instrumental stakeholder theory as the most promising candidate for theoretical development. Finally, they link stakeholder theory to broader areas of management scholarship. Using convergent stakeholder theory as a grand concept for integrating the many strands of stakeholder thinking is a natural idea given the current state-of-the-art of management theory and its penchant for consensus and agreement, and given the usually divergent poles of positivism and relativism (Wicks & Freeman, 1998).
