Integrating corporate responsibility principles and stakeholder approaches into mainstream strategy: a stakeholder‐oriented and integrative strategic management framework

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to establish a strategic management framework that supports the integration of corporate social responsibility principles and stakeholder approaches into mainstream business strategy. Design/methodology/approach – A top‐down and bottom‐up approach was used to develop the proposed framework. The top‐down approach focused on analyzing the main strategic management theories including social responsibility movements to identify complementary concepts and create a relevant topology. The bottom‐up approach was based on empirical research on the views of business companies on corporate social responsibility, a review of best practices and case studies mainly in Greece. Findings – The paper describes a stakeholder‐oriented integrative strategic management framework linking the main strategic management theories across value, responsiveness and responsibility dimensions. A mathematical model is presented describing the synergistic development of advantage‐creating knowledge and advantage‐creating stakeholder relations in accordance with the criteria of the resource‐based theory. Research limitations/implications – The proposed management framework is based on the results of research projects and is not fully developed and tested. The approach will be refined, exploiting results from ongoing research including further empirical research and testing in business organizations. Originality/value – The paper defines a novel conceptual framework extending the resource‐ and stakeholder‐based approaches by introducing two interlinked concepts: advantage‐creating knowledge and advantage‐creating stakeholder relations.