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Introduction
Operating in the globalized, turbulent geopolitical and business environments, entrenched with different value systems, managing diverse interests of stakeholders can be challenging for any organization. Stakeholder management is an indispensible part of daily organizational routines. However, lacking of focussed empirical research and qualitative narratives remain key challenges in advancing the stakeholder theory as a major theory of strategic management and organizational ethics on its own (Harrison and Freeman, 1999; Laplume et al. , 2008, p. 1181; Phillips et al. , 2003). Some scholars even argue that stakeholder theory is controversial as it questions a deep rooted value, profit maximization for shareholders (Jensen, 2002), increases unnecessarily managerial opportunism (Cennamo et al. , 2009), and complicates corporate governance (Sundaram and Inkpen, 2004). Against the backdrops and with a view to ascertain the strategic values of stakeholder management, we conducted three major stakeholder management case studies, namely, the RM7 billion[1] Rio Tinto aluminum smelter plant project, the RM500 million Azenertel-Kanuli Tanjung Batu beach resort project, and Trienekens scavenging services, taken in the organizational context of a large Malaysian governmental authority, Bintulu Development Authority (BDA), entrusted to develop the premier energy town in Malaysia, Bintulu, located in Sarawak, the only state in the country rated A by Standard & Poor's.
This paper has the following organization. First, we conduct the related search on stakeholder management literature. The rationales of qualitative research methods and background of key stakeholders are then discussed. In what follows, we analyze and synthesize the three stakeholder management cases with BDA taken as the focal firm, as well as discuss the implications of the works before drawing conclusions. Though stakeholder engagement could be a complex process, it is an indispensible organizational action for the firm to fulfill its economic self-interest and stakeholder expectations via its organizational strategic management mechanisms. By drawing resource capabilities throughout the organizations, stakeholder management can be a valuable organizational capability for sustained value creation.
Theoretical development
A stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievements of a firm's objectives (Emshoff and Freeman, 1978; Freeman, 1984). The stakeholder group can be organizational, societal, and economic (Werther and Chandler, 2011). Stakeholder management is the integration of constituents with a legitimate interest in the firm into managerial...