Corporate Sustainability, Strategic Management and the Stakeholder View of the Firm

This special issue of Finanza, Marketing e Produzione is based on the 5th Annual Colloquium of EABIS (the
European Academy of Business in Society), which was organized and hosted by EABIS Founding Partner
SDA Bocconi School of Management on September 11 and 12, 2006. More than 360 senior representatives
from 29 countries and different sectors (business, academia, policy-making, and civil society) attended the
conference.
This year’s focus was «Corporate Sustainability, Strategic Management & the Stakeholder View of the Firm».
The Colloquium was part of the EABIS-led «European Platform for Excellence in CSR Research (CSR
Platform)», funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme for Research (FP6).
The purpose of the Colloquium was to explore ways to link corporate social responsibility (CSR) with
strategic management by proposing a strategic approach to stakeholder management. The main question that
the debate raised was,
«Is corporate responsibility simply an add-on policy, which does not affect the current behaviour of companies,
or is it an innovative approach toward management based on a systemic stakeholder view of the
firm and aimed at ensuring corporate sustainability?».
Our view is that, in the present economic, social, and institutional environment and more and more into
the future, the capacity of a firm to generate sustainable wealth over time is related to its relationships with
its entire stakeholder network. Therefore, the sustainability of a company depends on the sustainability of
its stakeholder relationships.