Influences on managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience: two decades of research in review

Mitchell et al.’s (Acad Manag Rev 22(4):853–886, 1997) theory of stakeholder salience is still the leading theory for stakeholder identification and prioritization. However, the influence of contextual factors on managerial perceptions is less developed than topics such as stakeholder attributes and underlying assumptions. Further, the existing literature is scattered and not summarized systematically. Therefore, this review aims at providing a comprehensive and structured overview to clarify terms and accelerate future research. With the help of a research framework, I structured the identified literature into a manager’s individual “inner context” (i.e., position, knowledge and cognition, and personality) and their “outer context” (i.e., environment, organization, and passive stakeholder characteristics). Research gaps were identified not only in every category, but also in the used focal organization, geography, methodologies, and underlying theories. These results suggest new paths such as a focus on projects and interdisciplinary research with other fields such as personnel psychology or design thinking. © 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.