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The purpose of this paper is to create a “refined” (with unnecessary elements removed) definition of the term stakeholder, thereby removing confusion surrounding the use of this term from the general and project management arenas.

A method of deriving refined definitions for a group of terms by ensuring there are no unnecessary elements causing internal conflict or overlap is adopted and applied to resolve the confusion.

The refined definitions of stake and stakeholder are in terms of an interest and activity. This avoids all extensions of meaning introduced by defining particular types of stakeholders and/ or their degrees of impact. It also resolves the multiplicity of conflicting meanings possible when silent or assumed qualifiers of a word are ignored, restricting definition to, for example, project stakeholders or stakeholders of a firm. These definitions are carried forward into a mapping of the stakeholder locus of interest on an activity rather than a company base, enabling generic categorisation of stakeholders to be proposed for use in both private and public sectors. A governance difficulty with the term customer also emerged and a resolution to this is proposed.

Resolution of the academic contention around the definition of stakeholders will facilitate future research endeavours by removing confusion surrounding the term. It can also provide clarity in governance arrangements in public and private sectors. Verification of the method used through its success in deriving this “refined” definition suggests its suitability for application to other contested terms.

Projects and businesses alike can benefit from removal of confusion around the definition of stakeholder in the academic research they fund and attempt to apply.

A refined definition of the stakeholder concept will facilitate building social and physical systems and infrastructure, benefitting organisations, whether public, charitable or private.

Clarity results in the avoidance of confusion and misunderstanding together with their consequent waste of time, resources and money.

Stakeholder theory has been accused of being an umbrella concept rather than a distinct theory per se. Recognizing the stakeholder concept as an essentially contested concept subject to multiple competing interpretations, this chapter presents a systematic meta-level conceptual analysis. This chapter aims to contribute to the optimal development of stakeholder theory by clarifying the conceptual confusion surrounding its central construct to help prevent stakeholder theory from developing into an accumulation of disparate ideas. Multi-contextual contributions to stakeholder theory are analysed via an unparalleled bounded systematic review of 593 stakeholder definitions. Determinants of the stakeholder concept have been deconstructed and analysed to establish how definitional variables relate to variants of stakeholder theory. These determinants have been sorted, filtered and ordered to produce a comprehensive, multi-dimensional classification of stakeholder theory based on four hyponyms which relate to 16 definitional categories. The classification was then subjected to empirical testing with positive results. This evaluation of the stakeholder concept illustrates how contributions are aligned and interrelated, thereby prescribing what is acceptable (unacceptable) as inclusion within stakeholder theory. An invaluable overview of what we know about stakeholder theory is presented within a single model, drawing the conclusion that stakeholder theory is indeed a single theory.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate in the context of quality assurance (QA), how stakeholders define quality education and its connections to maximize value for the stakeholder using a grounded theory approach.

A four-stage research design using grounded theory methodology was used to develop and elicit a theory, after which a single-case study design with embedded coding and analysis was used to examine the QA – Maximize Value for stakeholder’s relationships. The sample consisted of 16 participants who had visibility over the entire QA – Maximize Value relationship, were knowledgeable, willing to participate and had between 4 and 12 years’ higher education experience. The data was collected through focus, elite groups and in-depth interviews based on the participants’ perspectives of their experiences. The collected data was subjected to content analysis. The following research questions focused on: definition of QA, the definition of quality education and stakeholders’ expectations for the education setting.

The study identified 10 categories that drive the QA – Maximize Value for stakeholder relationships in higher education settings. The categories are, namely, the definition of QA; definition of quality management; value for governing council; value for lecturers and staff; value for students; value for employers; value for government; definition of quality education; continuous improvement; and QA in universities. The main findings of the research related to “how” and “why” QA create value for stakeholders. The results of the study indicate that the governing council representatives’ (key stakeholders) expected value creation through improved management and proper education policy. The expected value creation for lecturers and university staff included career advancement, good working conditions of service, remuneration and the excellent performance of students. The paper finds that QA in higher education is contingent on senior management commitment to the strategic decision on overall objectives, management of the facility, financial and human resources, which are geared toward ensuring effective teaching, student learning and value maximization for all stakeholders.

The limitation of the study is that the major stakeholders considered were all from universities. Other stakeholders such as employers from the industry and other sectors should be included in a future study.

Based on the study findings, two major implications for training of senior management, deans and heads of departments in the concepts of QA to maximize value for all stakeholders; and the QA system selected for the university must be “fit for purpose” were drawn, leading to recommendations for future practice. These findings can help universities to develop strategies that improve educational quality and maximize value for all stakeholders. The authors suggested some propositions that can be examined in-depth in future research endeavors so as to enhance the understanding of the predictors of QA in education and the expectations of different stakeholders.

The originality of the study lies in the perspective of experienced participants who had visibility over the entire QA –Maximize Value relationship and were knowledgeable. Based on the use of the grounded theory approach and the view of major stakeholders used in this research, the findings emphasize the stakeholders’ – driven definition of quality education that focuses on value maximization for all stakeholders. This is different from the majority of the existing definitions in the quality literature that are primarily standard-driven, focusing on meeting a pre-defined set of standards, specifications, requirements and are set internally or externally. The approach provides an opportunity to increase the credibility and rigor of grounded theory research.

The research problem in this study is how a client (as a project owner) should organise early stakeholder involvement and integration in the front-end phase of a project. This study aims to create normative managerial statements as propositions from the client's perspective and to combine them into a set of activities enabling efficient organisation in the front-end phase of a hospital construction project.

Action design research (ADR) was carried out in a large hospital construction project where the first author acted as an “involved researcher” and the other authors acted as “outside researchers”.

The authors created seven normative managerial propositions that were verified by the case project stakeholders and developed a managerial framework describing the client's essential stakeholder involvement and integration activities in the front-end phase of a hospital construction project based on these propositions. The authors have also depicted the subphases of the front-end phase: value definition phase in the client permanent organisation, value proposition phase in the client Programme Management Office (PMO) and finally development phase in the alliance organisation ending on the final investment decision.

The collaborative contract delivery model enables the early involvement and integration of stakeholders. It has been somewhat surprising to note the extent to which collaborative contracts change the client role in the project front-end. The results offer practical activities for how clients can manage front-end activities in collaborative contracts.

The case project offered a platform to analyse how the collaborative contract delivery model changes the emphasis of activities in the front-end of a project. One of the key benefits of collaborative contracts is that development, design and delivery occur partially in parallel, thereby enabling contributions from production to be included in the design and development. The benefit of having a real-life case under study provides the possibility to triangulate and analyse rich data, however limited by the qualitative case method.

Scanning both the academic and popular business literature of the last 40 years puzzles the alert reader. The variety of prescriptions of how to be successful (effective, performing, etc.) 1 Organizational performance, organizational success and organizational effectiveness will be used interchangeably throughout this paper.1 in business is hardly comprehensible: “Being close to the customer,” Total Quality Management, corporate social responsibility, shareholder value maximization, efficient consumer response, management reward systems or employee involvement programs are but a few of the slogans introduced as means to increase organizational effectiveness. Management scholars have made little effort to integrate the various performance-enhancing strategies or to assess them in an orderly manner.

This study classifies organizational strategies by the importance each strategy attaches to different constituencies in the firm’s environment. A number of researchers divide an organization’s environment into various constituency groups and argue that these groups constitute – as providers and recipients of resources – the basis for organizational survival and well-being. Some theoretical schools argue for the foremost importance of responsiveness to certain constituencies while stakeholder theory calls for a – situation-contingent – balance in these responsiveness levels. Given that maximum responsiveness levels to different groups may be limited by an organization’s resource endowment or even counterbalanced, the need exists for a concurrent assessment of these competing claims by jointly evaluating the effect of the respective behaviors towards constituencies on performance. Thus, this study investigates the competing merits of implementing alternative business philosophies (e.g. balanced versus focused responsiveness to constituencies). Such a concurrent assessment provides a “critical test” of multiple, opposing theories rather than testing the merits of one theory (Carlsmith, Ellsworth & Aronson, 1976).

In the high tolerance level applied for this study (be among the top 80% of the industry) only a handful of organizations managed to sustain such a balanced strategy over the whole observation period. Continuously monitoring stakeholder demands and crafting suitable responsiveness strategies must therefore be a focus of successful business strategies. While such behavior may not be a sufficient explanation for organizational success, it certainly is a necessary one.

This paper examines the reasons why existing management practices designed to cope with paper‐based data objects appear to be inadequate for managing digital data objects (DDOs). The research described suggests the need for a reassessment of the way we view long‐term access to DDOs. There is a need for a shift in emphasis which embraces the fluid nature of such objects and addresses the multifaceted issues involved in achieving such access. It would appear from the findings of this research that a conceptual framework needs to be developed which addresses a range of elements. The research achieved this by examining the issues facing stakeholders involved in this field; examining the need for and structure of a new generic conceptual framework, the super‐metadata framework; identifying and discussing the issues central to the development of such a framework; and justifying the feasibility through the creation of an interactive cost model and stakeholder evaluation. The wider conceptual justification for such a framework is discussed and this involves an examination of the “public good” argument for the long‐term retention of DDOs and the importance of selection in the management process. The paper concludes by considering the benefits to practitioners and the role they might play in testing the feasibility of such a framework. The paper also suggests possible avenues researchers may wish to consider to develop further the management of this field. (Note: This paper is derived from the author’s Loughborough University phD thesis, “Managing long‐term access to digital data objects: a metadata approach”, written while holding a research studentship funded by the Department of Information Science.)

The task of this paper is to critique the ethics of an university entrepreneurship curriculum. For what purpose is entrepreneurship curriculum designed? Who decides what is to be included in an entrepreneurship curriculum? Ethics has a plurality and implies moral judgment informed by any individual’s values. In applying entrepreneurship education the rationale and justification of what is offered and why should be clear. The paper provides a synthesis conducted on an extant literature review on the ethics of an entrepreneurship curriculum, entrepreneurship education stakeholders, and stakeholder rights and obligations. An ethics enquiry framework is concluded that entrepreneurship education curriculum designers can apply to surface the assumptions underpinning the curriculum and assist educators to be clear and explicit about the intent and ambitions for an entrepreneurship education curriculum design. While this paper develops a framework, it has yet to be tested. Further research can examine specific sets of stakeholder expectations, variations in obligations among regulatory or institutional settings, explicitly examine the range of effects of an entrepreneurship curriculum, and report the usability and practical relevance of such an evaluative framework. Ethics in entrepreneurship education is under-researched and more particularly the ethics of the entrepreneurship curriculum appears to have rarely been questioned. Entrepreneurship education lays the foundation for the future actions of those who shape and socially structure entrepreneurship. Therefore, as educators, there is a greater responsibility for ensuring that the education provided meets certain expectations of and obligations to various stakeholder groups.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the socio-political role of materiality assessment in sustainability reporting literature and discuss the potential of materiality assessment to advance more inclusive accounting and reporting practices, in particular critical dialogic accounting.

Drawing on literature on the concept of materiality together with insights from stakeholder engagement, commensuration and critical dialogic accounting the paper analyses disclosure on materiality in sustainability reports. Empirically, qualitative content analysis is used to analyse 44 sustainability reports from the leading companies.

The authors argue that, first, the technic-rational approach to materiality portrays the assessment as a neutral and value-free measurement, and second, the materiality matrix presents the multiple stakeholders as having a unified understanding of what is considered important in corporate sustainability. Thus, the technic-rational approach to the materiality assessment, reinforced with the use of the matrix is a value-laden judgement of what matters in corporate sustainability and narrows down rather than opens up the complexity of the assessment of material sustainability issues, stakeholder engagement and the societal pursuit of sustainable development.

The understandings and implications of the concept of materiality are ambiguous and wide-reaching, as, through constituting the legitimised set of claims and information on corporate sustainable performance, it impacts our understanding of sustainable development at large, and affects the corporate and policy-level transition towards sustainability. Exploring insights from critical dialogic accounting help us to elaborate on the conceptions and practical implications of materiality assessment that enhance stakeholder engagement in a democratic, rather than managerial, spirit.