One of the features of business life is the managers' concern of a business with the creation of value for the owners of that business. The theoretical discourse of managing, according to the creation of shareholder value, gives primacy to shareholder and assumes that all other stakeholders will benefit from the creation of that value, without any of the proponents being specific as to how they will benefit or to what extent. Practitioners, however, recognize that these other stakeholders are important to the long-term success of their business and Cooper, Crowther, Davies and Davis (2001) show that all firms which manage according to shareholder value creation recognize the importance of other stakeholders and seek to manage their returns. For every company, customers and employees are recognized as being significant stakeholders. Thus, all firms, which purport to manage according to shareholder value creation in actual fact, use some kind of balanced scorecard, which seeks to take into account the other major stakeholders in their management of performance.

Although all companies purport to recognize the importance of various stakeholders to their management of performance, this is often only at the strategy level, and it is often not carried forward into operational practice. This is despite the claims made by the senior managers of the company (see Cooper et al. 2001), which raises a dichotomous question about operational activities within a company. Is a concern with stakeholders merely rhetorical or is there a problem within a company in translating this concern into operational practice?

In other words, is it possible for a company to behave in an ethical and socially responsible manner and still maximize the creation of value for shareholders? It is readily assumed that the management of value created by the organization is only pertinent insofar as that value accrues to the shareholders of the firm. Implicit within this view of the management of the firm, as espoused by Rappaport (1986) and Stewart (1991) amongst many others, is that society at large, and consequently all other stakeholders to the organization, will also benefit as a result of managing the performance of the organization in this manner.

Corporate social responsibility, shareholders, shareholder value, corporate governance, stakeholders, Practitioners, long-term success, business and Cooper, balanced scorecard, Crowther, Davies, operational activities, senior managers, management, organization, dichotomous question, management of performance, theoretical discourse, strategy level.