Post Secular Reflections on the Value of the Stakeholder Approach in Business

The business strategy literature considers two types of corporate objectives or, as companies like to call them, ‘missions’, namely the shareholder and stakeholder approaches. According to the shareholder approach, companies exist to maximize the return for shareholders, and all other stakeholders (workers, managers, customers, suppliers, etc.) are instrumental in achieving this purpose. On the other hand, according to the stakeholder approach (in its more communitarian form), companies exist to benefit all stakeholders (including the shareholders, though, unlike for the shareholder approach, these are not given priority over other stakeholders).