Stakeholder Engagement beyond the Tension between Idealism and Practical Concerns

This paper digs into the existing controversial literature on stakeholder engagement (SE) to understand and\r\ncritically confront with ambivalence in the concept. This is done by exploring how SE is conceptually framed and\r\npragmatically pursued in the representations of current business practices. The study is designed according to a\r\nqualitative interpretive approach based on depth interviews with a purposively selected theoretical sample of key\r\ninformants with established expertise in stakeholder relationship management practices. According to our findings,\r\nSE appears torn between an idealistic impetus on the fringe of a utopian vision of the business, and its often trivial\r\ntranslation into practice urged by the pragmatic necessity to meet accountability requirements. This tension stems\r\nfrom corporate governance logics and organizational business models of firms, which are often not prone to\r\nguarantee the participatory and genuinely dialogic exchange between company and stakeholders advocated by the\r\nidealistic mandate of SE. In terms of contribution the paper provides a critical inductive reconstruction of current\r\nmeanings and clashes embedded in enacting SE.