From stakeholders to stakeowners

How does our perception of power affect how we play in global sustainability issues?

Have you thought about this, or are you even willing to think about it? We are all used to the stakeholder theory. They say, we are the individuals and groups who affect and are affected by the organization. But if you think carefully about this; how much are you able to influence major decisions in the world around you? How much power do you have? How much power have you given away? How many things are you frustrated about that politicians and corporations are not acting on with a sense of urgency?

Stakeholder theory puts the firm in the center and communities and individuals in many cases don't get to win. Money and power do. It seems to me that the stakeholder theory is tired and worn out, although it has served as a foundation for our understanding firm-society issues since Freeman's publication in 1984.

In theory, if you are a stakeholder, you are supposed to be attended to by the firm or the organization. In the age of responsibilization, however, you are on your own and everything depends on you as an individual or a community. Stakeowner theory, however, puts individuals and communities in the driver's seat. They now decide on issues about health, environment, education and their futures.

We are woven into an ecological and economic tapestry whose present and future the current generation is accountable for in the era of universal stakeownership for a crucial evolutionary adaptation.

In the era of stakeowner theory, power belongs to the people and the representatives they elect, not capital owners. This contradicts the by-stander nature of stakeholder theory. Stakeowner theory recognizes that surveillance capitalism, technological feudalism and other emerging changes, such as the loss of food sovereignty, can in fact disempower individuals and communities.

Simply put, stakeowner theory brings back the responsibility and rights of the individuals/communities, especially those of the indigenous people.

Ahen, F. Making Resource Democracy Radically Meaningful for Stakeowners: Our World, Our Rules? Sustainability 2019, 11, 5150. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11195150