Blending issues and stakeholders: in pursuit of the elusive synergy

Two separate frameworks have existed for the analysis of social predicaments in which businesses play a role: issues management and stakeholder management. In this paper, we argue that the chasm dividing these two literatures is artificial, and potentially obstructive to the advancement of our knowledge of the position of business in contemporary societies. The position we take in the present paper is that all social predicaments have an issues side as well as a stakeholder side and that a dual focus on both issues and stakeholders is therefore essential to understanding the evolution of these predicaments and crucial to managerial dealings with these issues. We present an integrative co-evolutionary framework, explaining the dynamics between issues and stakeholders in all consecutive stages of a predicament's evolution. The framework proposes a new way of thinking about issues and stakeholders, as such facilitates a deeper understanding of how the social environment of business is constituted, and offers new insights for the practical management of issues and stakeholders.     

The Public Trust as an Evolutionary Doctrine: How the Trust can be Used to Allege an Injury Under Standing

The public trust doctrine provides protection of public access to resources, such as navigable waterways, protected under the public trust. The doctrine has evolved over time to protect natural resources such as tidelands, submerged waterbeds, wildlife, and climate change. Juliana v. United States is a groundbreaking trust case that moves the application of the trust to the management of climate-change regimes. Although the doctrine has been criticized as a façade, forestalling real recourse for change, it can be used to show standing for current and future generations. Accordingly, Juliana outlines how this doctrine is not just evolutionary it is also revolutionary.     

A Cultural Nod to‘Sparing the Rod'

<正>Everyone is probably familiar with stock cultural figures of the Tiger Mom,or the obnoxiously loud,pushy sports-obsessed dad.If you are a Westerner and have participated in Little League Baseball as player,fan,or coach,you will know the scene only too well:a parent publicly berating his or her youngster for a lackluster performance.Sympathetic onlookers know better than to intervene,preferring