Part I: Setting the Stage.- Part II: Gathering Evidence.- Part III: A Compass for Stakeholder Management.
Linda O’Riordan is a Professor of Business Studies & International Management and the Director of the Research Competence Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the FOM University of Applied Sciences in Germany. She is a general manager by background with a PhD from the University of Bradford in the UK. Dr. O’Riordan researches and writes with a focus on stakeholder management based on an holistic approach to organising sustainable business in society. She has led an edited book on CSR “New Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility: Locating the Missing Link”, she is the editor and reviewer of various leading international journals, and her work has been published in prominent peer-reviewed publications, such as the Journal of Business Ethics. In her educational role, Dr. O’Riordan lectures MBA and Bachelor students in subjects including: International Management & Business Strategy; Corporate Responsiblility; Marketing and Customer Relationship Management; Intercultural Competence Studies; Management Consulting and Problem-Solving. Additionally, she is a guest lecturer at various Universities including the University of Applied Sciences and the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf. Previous to her academic role, she gained business and consultancy experience from working in industry. Some of her past employers include Accenture, UCB-Schwarz Pharma, and the Government of Ireland (Bórd Bia), as well as apprenticeship positions during her studies in Ireland at the Irish Telecom Company, Dublin (now Eircom), and the Bank of Ireland, Cork. Dr. O’Riordan’s academic qualifications include an MBA and a Masters in Research from the University of Bradford in the UK, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies from the University of Limerick, Ireland.
As ‘disruption’ is currently becoming the new buzzword in boardrooms, this book advocates that the most striking opportunity for business today is making itself relevant to its stakeholders. By presenting a new route via innovative business models, a transformational corporate approach to stakeholder-orientated value creation is advocated in the form of a new stakeholder management framework. This conceptual framework provides both a theoretical and practical management solution for re-inventing the organisation via an enlightened perspective of the purpose of business in society. The new approach transforms the existing business model via an inclusive, collaborative, connected mechanism of stakeholder value creation into an innovative business model through which the corporation mobilises the investment, conversion, and sustainability of the resources it employs in ways which are designed to be optimally relevant to its stakeholders. The overall impact results in innovative business models serving as catalysts for creating stakeholder-orientated value in place of the traditional, more narrowly-focused shareholder profit-maximisation aim of conventional business models.