Pivoting after almost 50 years of SHRM research: toward a stakeholder view

Abstract

Early in the history of the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) literature, writers frequently discussed stakeholders to the organization that were relevant to the Human Resources (HR) function. However, over the years the field narrowed its focus to be primarily, if not solely, on one stakeholder: the shareholders. While many authors have paid lip-service to the fact that other stakeholders exist, little attention was devoted to what these stakeholders meant for the HR function. In this paper, we examine the current thinking around stakeholder theory in the strategic management literature, and then explore what a stakeholder view of SHRM guided by this theory might look like. We build our approach around five important HR categories – purpose, priorities, people, personal relationships, and practices – and hope that this approach can help the field pivot to a more values-driven, stakeholder-centered view of the HR function.