Resumo

In this work, we want to explore more about how the definitions of Stakeholder Theory are implemented in sustainability literature. If there is any other dominant theory in this field and if yes, then which and why are there different definitions, and theoretical backgrounds? It’s also important to reveal how these definitions changed or developed in sustainability research literature in the last years. Where they expanded or reduced and if yes then why? We will also use different dimensions of sustainability, based on the triple bottom line concept (John Elkington, 1994).

Our paper will answer how the concept of value creation is embedded in studies related to sustainability, comparing the applied use with the original concept from Edward Freeman in the Stakeholder Theory ? As auxiliary objectives, this work aimed to provide theoretical analysis for studies on value creation as a concept in sustainability and to propose new research paths.

The literature review presented above demonstrates the advances and evolution of Stakeholder Theory over the years, recognizing here the importance of these advances and developments, in the present work, we will use as a basis and focus on the original definitions presented by Freeman. (Freeman, 1984; Freeman et al., 2010). In this case, another important concept discussed in Freeman's classic work, in addition to the definition of the term, is the concept of value creation, which indicates that companies must create value for their stakeholders.

As the methodology considered in the present work of bibliometric analysis, a qualitative meta-analysis was used as a literature review technique, having as a methodological basis the same procedures used by Jhunior et al., (2021). In this work, the authors carried out a bibliographic analysis of the concept of co-creation of value in Stakeholder Theory, in this case, without focusing on the field of sustainability.

First, our work agreed that Stakeholder Theory is one of the major approaches in social, environmental and sustainability management research (Garvare & Johansson, 2010; Frynas & Yamahaki, 2013; Hrisch et al., 2014; Montiel & Delgado- Ceballos, 2014; Wang, 2017). Considering the way of thinking about value creation it was the only recognized theory. Our results shows also that less than 10 % of the articles use the definition of Edward Freeman about value creation even though there isn’t any other major cited definition.

We argued how the value creation process, an important concept of Stakeholder Theory, has been applied in the field of sustainability. Our work based on an analysis of publications what showed that: First, Stakeholder Theory is the dominant approach in this literature, but only some of the works refer directly to the original concept of Freeman. Second, articles with the highest impact from the last two decades do not discuss deeply the definition of value creation and there is no existing general way to describe value creation in the literature.

Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The Stakeholder Theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence, and implications. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 65–91. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9503271992 Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Pitman. Freeman, R. E. (2017). Five challenges to Stakeholder Theory: A report on research in Progress. Stakeholder Management, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1108/s2514-175920170000001 Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Purnell, L., & de Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder Theory:the state of the art. Academy of Mana