Stakeholder theory: Pictures, the environment and sustainable development – do we have a good enough picture in our heads or do we need something different?

Abstract

This paper critiques stakeholder theory within a frame of sustainable development. The critique argues that in the same way that in the 1980s when stakeholder theory was introduced and the argument was put forward that stakeholder theory was a tool of today not 30 years ago and old theories should be put to one side; now 27 years after the introduction of stakeholder theory it has perhaps served its time and needs to be confined to the archives. The main thrust of the paper is an exploration of the illusion of equity that masks inequity as portrayed by the pictorial representation of the theory. The paper's closing section explores the implications of sustainable development to our ways of thinking, concluding that these implications render stakeholder theory outdated.