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Creating Value by Sharing Values: Managing Stakeholder Value Conflict in the Face of Pluralism through Discursive Justification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

Maximilian J. L. Schormair  and
Dirk Ulrich Gilbert
Maximilian J. L. Schormair
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin
Dirk Ulrich Gilbert
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg
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Abstract

The question of how to engage with stakeholders in situations of value conflict to create value that includes a plurality of conflicting stakeholder value perspectives represents one of the crucial current challenges of stakeholder engagement as well as of value creation stakeholder theory. To address this challenge, we conceptualize a discursive sharing process between affected stakeholders that is oriented toward discursive justification involving multiple procedural steps. This sharing process provides procedural guidance for firms and stakeholders to create pluralistic stakeholder value through the discursive accommodation of diverging stakeholder value perspectives. The outcomes of such a discursive value-sharing process range from stakeholder value dissensus to low (agreement to disagree) and increasing levels of stakeholder value congruence (value compromise) to stakeholder value consensus (shared values). Hence, this article contributes to the emerging literature on integrative stakeholder engagement by conceptualizing a procedural framework that is neither overly oriented towards dissensus nor consensus.

Keywords

stakeholder value conflictvalue pluralismstakeholder engagementdiscursive justificationsharing
Type
Article
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 1 - 36
Copyright
©2020 Business Ethics Quarterly

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