Giving voice to the silent: a framework for understanding stakeholders' participation in socially-oriented initiatives, community-based actions and humanitarian operations projects

Abstract

Under the umbrella of compassionate operations management theory (Sarkis, in Int J Prod Econ 139(2):359–365,2012) and stakeholder theory, the aim of this article is to propose a comprehensive framework to unlock stakeholders’ voice in socially-oriented projects (for example, social responsibility, community and humanitarian projects). The framework developed in this work aims to assist managers to measure the level of engagement of stakeholders during socially-oriented projects’ execution. It may allow better accountability, transparency and stakeholder satisfaction. For this purpose, the study seeks to explore key concepts and ideas about participatory management in socially-oriented projects, and Freeman’s (Strategic Management: a stakeholder approach. Pitman, Boston, 1984) stakeholder theory, in addition to essential principles of the AA1000 framework. It is therefore a piece of conceptual research based on the proposal of a framework. This framework could in the near future be applied to organizations that need to expand their level of awareness of stakeholders’ satisfaction during the execution of organizational social responsibility and humanitarian project management they finance. It makes possible to understand the level of involvement of stakeholders. It is expected that the contributions made will be useful for researchers to propose new studies to improve the indicators presented here, as well as allow future studies to apply these indicators in social projects and in humanitarian initiatives.