Collective value creation: a new approach to stakeholder value

Abstract

The corporate community has rediscovered an old idea: stakeholder value. The concept’s history is rooted in the literature on varieties of capitalism. Within that scholarship it has served to delineate institutional and relational differences between capitalist systems and forms of corporate governance. Today, stakeholder value is being used to argue for the redirection of capitalism to deliver on key goals related to inclusion and sustainability. This paper argues that the concept–and thus the endeavour to change capitalism–will remain weak unless it goes to the centre of how we create value. Moralistic exhortations to business leaders are not enough to bring about a true stakeholder form of capitalism. For this we must have stronger theory and practice on how to restructure finance, production, and public-private partnerships in new ways that recognise the state’s market-shaping role and support equitable distribution of value across stakeholders.