Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts

Stakeholder theory hers been a: popular heuristic for describing the management environment for years, but it has not attained full theoretical status. Our aim in this article is to contribute to a theory of stakeholder identification and salience based on stakeholders possessing one or more of three relationship attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency. By combining these attributes, we generate a: typology of stakeholders, propositions concerning their salience to managers of the firm and research and management implications.