When I sat down to write Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach in June of 1982 I had no idea that it would still be relevant to business scholars and practitioners some 25 years later. I was summarizing the work of many business thinkers such as Russell Ackoff, Jim Emshoff, Eric Rhenman, Eric Trist, and others and stating what I took to be obvious and plain, common sense. Managers had to deal with those groups and individuals that could affect or be affected by their Company, i.e., stakeholders. That seemed to me, and still does, to be the essence of Strategic thinking.

Many people found this idea to be radical. By placing “stakeholder” in the center of Strategic thinking, the unit of analysis is changed to a more relational view of business. “Stakeholder management” didn't make the usual distinctions between “economic” and “social”, or “business” and “non business”. It is ironic that the scholars who have used and developed the idea the most were those in corporate social responsibility. I argued in the book, and continue to believe, that “social responsibility” is one of those ideas that prop up a story about business that is no longer useful. I am most thankful that thousands of managers who have been students in my seminars over the years have found a measure of usefulness in the idea of stakeholder management. It is now “old hat” in many areas of business.

Yet, we still need a new story about business. The recent global financial crisis has made this plain. I believe that the central characters in that story must be companies and their customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and financiers.