Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The research at hand deals with stakeholder participation in corporate sustainability strategies. It aims to carve out how employees working at different corporations perceive, experience and motivate the role of their stakeholders with regards to sustainable development. Further, it examines to which extend they make sense of the theoretical framework this thesis engages in being Stakeholder Theory following Edward Freeman (1984). A qualitative content analysis of data gathered in several expert interviews reveals that corporations initiate the participation of their stakeholders motivated by diverse strategic reasons. These strategic reasons shall reinforce the overall success of the firm’s sustainability strategy. This thesis further shows that in practice the key principles of Stakeholder Theory are only partly applied. In a final discussion of this thesis’ findings questions of public democracy and agency are raised. It is identified that the equal participation of all stakeholders limits the extent to which corporate sustainability strategies can be implemented. This results in the identification of a dilemma between the intrinsic value of sustainability and public democratic participation processes.