Bridging the transactional and relational view on management-stakeholder cooperation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a 2 × 2-perspective of management–stakeholder cooperation in organizational issues. The model encompasses the perspectives of both management and stakeholder and bridges the two dominant views in stakeholder thinking, namely, the transactional and the relational view. Design/methodology/approach – From a state-of-the-art elaboration of the stakeholder literature, this paper combines two separate perspectives on management–stakeholder cooperation. Findings – The bilateral perspective stresses that the ease of this collaboration not only depends on the willingness of management to pursue cooperation, but also on that of the stakeholder. The double-motive perspective signifies that both parties can be dominantly motivated by either individual, issue-based reasons (transactional motives) or by the desire to establish lasting relationships (relational motives). Originality/value – This paper presents a more elaborate picture of management–stakeholder cooperation by combining the transactional concept of stakeholder salience with the concepts “stakeholder reputation” and “management reputation” associated with the relational dimension.