Taking stock of the stakeholder salience tradition: Renewing the research agenda

Abstract

Mitchell, Agle and Wood’s (1997) stakeholder salience theory is one of the most prominent contributions to the management literature. Although the stakeholder salience theory is a powerful tool for identifying and prioritizing stakeholders and is one of the most frequently cited works, efforts to take stock of research in the stakeholder salience tradition have remained limited. Therefore, in this article, we consolidated and synthesized 57 relevant research articles into three mutually discernible themes (assessment of Mitchell et al.’s (1997) model, refinement of the model and integration of contextual factors) and identified areas in which research into stakeholder salience has contributed to overcoming the limitations of broader stakeholder thinking. Moreover, grounded in a historical perspective, we present several avenues for future research that also helped us to make theoretical, methodological and thematic contributions.