Human–Animal Relations in Business and Society: Advancing the Feminist Interpretation of Stakeholder Theory

Linda Tallberg*, Jose-Carlos García-Rosell, Minni Haanpää

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

44 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Stakeholder theory has largely been anthropocentric in its focus on human actors and interests, failing to recognise the impact of nonhumans in business and organisations. This leads to an incomplete understanding of organisational contexts that include key relationships with nonhuman animals. In addition, the limited scholarly attention paid to nonhumans as stakeholders has mostly been conceptual to date. Therefore, we develop a stakeholder theory with animals illustrated through two ethnographic case studies: an animal shelter and Nordic husky businesses. We focus our feminist reading of Driscoll and Starik’s (J Bus Ethics 49:55–73, 2004) stakeholder attributes for nonhumans and extend this to include affective salience built on embodied affectivity and knowledge, memories, action and care. Findings reveal that nonhuman animals are important actors in practice, affecting organisational operations through human–animal care relationships. In addition to confirming animals are stakeholders, we further contribute to stakeholder theory by offering ways to better listen to nontraditional actors.
Original languageEnglish
Peer-reviewed scientific journalJournal of Business Ethics
Number of pages16
ISSN0167-4544
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21.05.2021
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article - refereed

Keywords

  • 512 Business and Management
  • Animals
  • Affective embodiment
  • Ethics of Care
  • Stakeholder theory
  • Ethnography

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