A selected literature review on the changing role of stakeholders as value creators

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changing role of stakeholders in value creation since the inception of literature on stakeholders and sustainability from 1984 and 1987, respectively until 2015. To understand interrelationships among key terms of stakeholder and sustainability literature.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores the changing role of stakeholders as a source of value creation through extensive literature review by adopting text mining approach. VantagePoint is the tool used to facilitate text mining literature of sustainability and stakeholder and related literature from 1984 to 2015.

Findings

This paper reveals that the major trends in firm’s approach towards stakeholders has changed over the years from demonstration of compliance in 1984-1994, safeguarding of reputation from 1994 to 2004, to finally co-creating value with stakeholders from the period of 2004-2014.

Research limitations/implications

There have been extensive literature reviews done on stakeholder and sustainability literature, but only few have studied the integration of stakeholder and sustainability literature. This paper has used a novel approach, i.e. VantagePoint software to analyse the sustainability and stakeholder literature.

Originality/value

The changing role of stakeholders as a value creator have provided new research avenues in value creation process. The emerging challenge that firms now face is to co-create sustainable value by engaging both internal and external stakeholders.

Citation

Samant, S.M. and Sangle, S. (2016), "A selected literature review on the changing role of stakeholders as value creators", World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 100-119. https://doi.org/10.1108/WJSTSD-01-2016-0002