Evolutionary stakeholder theory and public utility regulation

Business and Society Review 124 (2):283-298 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Public utility regulation is one example of how stakeholder theory has actually evolved in practice. Through trial and error, court cases, statutory law and economic realities, stakeholder theory has its origins almost a century before R Edward Freeman published his seminal work Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. This wealth of historical data is largely overlooked by the stakeholder literature. We will show in this article how the specific history of public utility regulation provides at least one answer to how stakeholder theory can be formulated, used, and applied. This process of determining and protecting stakeholder interests is significantly different from rationalist trends in stakeholder theory.1 Rather than first trying to determine the requirements of stakeholder theory in conjunction with an ideal ethical theory, the account given here is of an evolutionary stakeholder theory where rules arise out of the ongoing search for cooperative solutions among all stakeholders.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Whither Stakeholder Theory? A Guide for the Perplexed Revisited.John Hasnas - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 112 (1):47-57.
Three Elements of Stakeholder Legitimacy.Adele Santana - 2012 - Journal of Business Ethics 105 (2):257-265.
Stakeholder Theory: 25 Years Later.R. Edward Freeman - 2009 - Philosophy of Management 8 (3):97-107.
Stakeholder Theory: A Libertarian Defense.R. Edward Freeman & Robert A. Phillips - 2002 - Business Ethics Quarterly 12 (3):331-349.
The Evolution of Reason: Logic as a Branch of Biology.William S. Cooper - 2001 - Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
God as a Managerial Stakeholder?Mark S. Schwartz - 2006 - Journal of Business Ethics 66 (2/3):291 - 306.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-05-24

Downloads
14 (#846,545)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?