Abstract
Stakeholder management is increasingly a key factor for improving business performance. Management needs to build relationships with very different stakeholders (shareholders, employees, customers, society etc.), act more transparently, be accountable and provide opportunities for dialogue and involvement or participation. This paper describes how to mobilise the sense of responsibility of all the relevant stakeholders, create the best organisational context for involvement, organise and manage that involvement, consider all the stakeholder arguments and manage the constantly shifting balance between the interests of stakeholders. In particular, employees as stakeholders can play an active role. On the basis of some best practices in the Netherlands, the paper shows that within the concept of the stakeholder model, employees – under certain conditions – really can become partners in decision making at the corporate level. The stakeholder model assumes a partnership between management and stakeholders, a partnership seen as a real dynamic and changing process of dialogue.