Fair Stakeholder Negotiations

Through compensation arrangements, corporate managers are typically bonded to the interests of shareholders. As a result, managers have a conflict of interest in paternalistically deciding the compensations to and opportunities for other nonowner stakeholders (employees, suppliers, and some others). An appropriate normative stakeholder theory should therefore center on notions of fair negotiations with these stakeholders where management openly acts as the agents of the shareholders. These resulting management agreements might therefore be viewed as resulting from fair bargaining. Consequently, an applicable set of Kantian-derived rules for fair negotiations are posed here. Their appropriateness to both indirect market-based negotiation and also direct negotiation with stakeholders is examined.