A holistic approach to stakeholder management: A rhetorical foundation

► A holistic view of stakeholder management rests on rhetorical grounds. ► Kenneth Burke gives us three tools to analyze and plan for stakeholder relations. ► Stakeholders are created through identification. ► Stakeholder relationships are maintained through discourse about literal dramas. ► Stakeholder relationships are improved by a process of creating new orders of things. ► Ethics is central, through seven traits of trustworthiness and stakeholder theory. The day-to-day concerns of managing stakeholders are a critical matter for public relations practitioners and scholars alike. “Stakeholder theory” subsumes the knowledge base about stakeholders, who are individuals and groups who affect or are affected by an organization's actions. This article argues that a holistic view of stakeholder management rests on rhetorical grounds and concerns answering three fundamental questions: (1) How are stakeholders created? (2) How can relationships with stakeholders be maintained? and (3) How can relationships with stakeholders be improved? Example cases are used to demonstrate how retrospective analysis reveals the effectiveness of stakeholder management approaches. Ultimately and most important, the combination of theory and case analyses are synthesized into a prospective approach to stakeholder management that organizations may use during strategic planning.