ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines a broad set of approaches to organizational decision making that he refers to as "stakeholder thinking." Stakeholder thinking is a normative ethical approach to decision making that emphasizes corporate responsibilities to individuals, groups, and institutions including, when applicable, fiduciary obligations owed to investors and shareholders. The author argues that stakeholder thinking, often celebrated as a successor to the shareholder paradigm, is itself in need of a successor along with the shareholder paradigm. He sets the stage historically and conceptually regarding stakeholder thinking. The term "stakeholder" seems to have originated in a 1963 internal memorandum at the Stanford Research Institute. The business ethics student should take seriously the imperatives of fiduciary shareholder and non-fiduciary stakeholder obligations while thinking more broadly about the societal contributions of economic, political, and civic institutions. Stakeholder thinking, without negating fiduciary thinking, expands the horizons of corporate responsibility: goods and harms for multiple parties.
