Developing Stakeholder‐Oriented Strategic Positions: The Stakeholder Advantage Strategy

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how organizations develop stakeholder‐oriented strategic positions over time. As societal challenges, institutional pressures, and interdependencies intensify, organizations increasingly struggle to translate stakeholder theory into actionable strategic practice. Drawing on 66 interviews with strategic leaders and key stakeholders across 11 organizations, we develop a practice‐based, developmental framework. Rather than proposing a new theory, the Stakeholder Advantage Strategy synthesizes established insights from the strategic stakeholder management literature and explains how organizations move from reactive to integrative stakeholder strategies. It does so by applying the strategic positioning framework, clarifying how strategic leaders progressively incorporate stakeholders into decision‐making and reorient value creation toward systemic outcomes. Using the heuristic metaphor of sail trimming, we illustrate how leaders continuously adjust strategic direction through four interrelated elements: legitimacy building, joint value, awareness of interdependence, and alignment orientation. We contribute to strategy and strategic management literature by offering a developmental account of stakeholder‐oriented strategic positioning.