Bridging the transactional and relational view on management-stakeholder cooperation

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a 2 × 2-perspective of management–stakeholder cooperation in organizational issues. The model encompasses the perspectives of both management and stakeholder and bridges the two dominant views in stakeholder thinking, namely, the transactional and the relational view.

Design/methodology/approach

From a state-of-the-art elaboration of the stakeholder literature, this paper combines two separate perspectives on management–stakeholder cooperation.

Findings

The bilateral perspective stresses that the ease of this collaboration not only depends on the willingness of management to pursue cooperation, but also on that of the stakeholder. The double-motive perspective signifies that both parties can be dominantly motivated by either individual, issue-based reasons (transactional motives) or by the desire to establish lasting relationships (relational motives).

Originality/value

This paper presents a more elaborate picture of management–stakeholder cooperation by combining the transactional concept of stakeholder salience with the concepts “stakeholder reputation” and “management reputation” associated with the relational dimension.

Citation

Vos, J. and Achterkamp, M.C. (2015), "Bridging the transactional and relational view on management-stakeholder cooperation", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 652-663. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-07-2013-0692