Managing for Stakeholders is used in the Darden School's first-year required "Business Ethics" course. This note explains managing for stakeholders, an emerging view that, basically, businesses and the executives who manage them actually do and should create value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities, and financiers (or shareholders)--which contrasts with the dominant idea that businesses are to be managed solely for the benefit of shareholders. The note examines why the dominant model is no longer viable in today's business world, then goes on to define the basic ideas of managing for stakeholders (and why it solves some of the problems of the dominant model) and to sketch three primary arguments from ethical theory for adopting managing for stakeholders.
