Stakeholder Valuing: A Process for Identifying the Interrelationships between Firm and Stakeholder Attributes

Donna M. Carlon and Alexis Downs
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Donna M. Carlon: College of Business, University of Central Oklahoma, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond, OK 73034, USA
Alexis Downs: Meinders School of Business, Oklahoma City University, 2501 North Blackwelder, Oklahoma City, OK 73106, USA

Administrative Sciences, 2014, vol. 4, issue 2, 1-18

Abstract: As firms are creating and recreating themselves as stakeholder corporations, tensions mount between a firm’s fiduciary duties to its shareholders and the broader responsibilities inherent in a stakeholder focus. Firms have employed several techniques to help resolve this tension with limited success. We suggest that the next step in reducing this tension is formally accounting for stakeholder value through changes in financial reporting. We contend that stakeholders have a financial value to the firm that can and should be accounted for through the firm’s financial reporting system. We propose a three-step process we call stakeholder valuing (SV) to begin a conversation regarding how such a method can be created. SV begins with codifying the firm’s identity as a stakeholder entity, moves to assessing stakeholder value that’s consistent with that identity, and concludes with accounting for and reporting that value. What we are suggesting will be seen by some as a radical change in accounting practices but we believe it is necessary as we move toward a consistent, reliable, verifiable, transparent, and comparable means of accounting for the true value of a stakeholder corporation.

Keywords: stakeholder theory; identity construction; accounting for stakeholder value; shareholder/stakeholder corporation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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