An Analytical Approach to (Meta)Relational Models Theory, and its Application to Triple Bottom Line (Profit, People, Planet) -- Towards Social Relations Portfolio Management

Arsham Farzinnia and Corine Boon

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Investigating the optimal nature of social interactions among actors (e.g., people or firms), who seek to achieve certain mutually-agreed objectives, has been the subject of extensive academic research. Using the relational models theory (describing all social interactions as combinations of four basic sociality ingredients: Communal Sharing, Authority Ranking, Equality Matching, and Market Pricing), the common approach revolves around qualitative arguments for determining sociality configurations most effective in realizing specific purposes, at times supplemented by empirical data. In the current treatment, we formulate this question as a mathematical optimization problem, in order to quantitatively derive the most suitable combination of sociality forms for dyadic actors, which optimizes their mutually-agreed objective. For this purpose, we develop an analytical framework of the (meta)relational models theory, and demonstrate that combining the four sociality forms to define a specific meaningful social situation inevitably prompts an inherent tension among them, codified by a single elementary and universal metarelation. In analogy with financial portfolio management, we subsequently introduce the concept of Social Relations Portfolio (SRP) management, and propose a generalizable methodology capable of quantitatively identifying the efficient SRP, which, in turn, enables effective stakeholder and change management initiatives. As an important illustration, the methodology is applied to the Triple Bottom Line (Profit, People, Planet) paradigm to derive its efficient SRP. This serves as a guide to practitioners for precisely measuring, monitoring, reporting and steering stakeholder and change management efforts concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) within and / or across organizations.

Date: 2024-02, Revised 2025-09
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