Practical Issues in Implementing the Stakeholder View as a Core Competence

A stakeholder-oriented perspective stimulated the discussion concerning competence-based strategic management. This perspective enlarged the range of causalities that provided core competencies and widened managerial discretion. The aim of this paper is to gain empirical insights based on the situation in nine companies. Here we focus on three research questions: Why did the firms adopt a broader stakeholder orientation? How does this perspective affect the firms’ strategy, structure and culture and to what extent are the stakeholder interactions considered as core competencies? How is this implemented in reality? To answer these questions we conducted interviews and held workshops with nine firms. The results of this empirical study are reported and conclusions for the practical management are drawn.