Talk:Stakeholder theory/Archives/2018

Quick question

This article starts off rather oddly with what sounds like a curious argument about who had priority in terms of formulating the notion of "Stakeholder theory" in the sense of "One common version of stakeholder theory seeks to define the specific stakeholders of a company (the normative theory of stakeholder identification) and then examine the conditions under which managers treat these parties as stakeholders (the descriptive theory of stakeholder salience)."

Both claims are cited as coming from 1983, but the idea is quite a bit older than that. I'm not sure it makes sense for the article to start off with an odd paragraph about what might be some kind of obscure academic feud. (I'm just guessing!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:48, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

As no one has responded, I may take a stab at an update next week (I will be stuck in a hotel room most likely and I've been reading up on the history of this concept so I might as well share a bit!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales - I agree that the summary paragraph of the article needs improvement in this regard. I feel that it reads like there's a debate or an argument regarding "who thought of it first" between these two people, and that it makes a slight implication of a competition that doesn't exist - mostly because it states that R. Edward Freeman also had published work about this theory too, "but makes no reference to Mitroff's work". Why does it need to say that? I think that a great way to improve this part of the article summary paragraph is to state that Ian Mitroff published a book, "Stakeholders of the Organizational Mind", in 1983 in San Francisco and maybe summarize the book's main focus. Then, state that R. Edward Freeman published an article on Stakeholder theory in the California Management Review in late 1983 based from his time at the Stanford Research Institute, and summarize what the article focused on just as you did with Ian Mitroff's book - then move on from there. Give both people equal time, keep it short and sweet strictly from the facts, and take out the statement that implies they were bumping into one another. Do that, and it'll greatly improve that part of the article summary paragraph. Good luck with improving the paragraph, I wish you well and happy editing to you :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 10:53, 7 July 2018 (UTC)