Stakeholder Capitalism

Stakeholder capitalism is the alternative to shareholder primacy—the institutional architecture that holds firms accountable to all parties affected by their decisions, not merely to equity investors. Henderson's version is structurally specific rather than aspirational. It requires governance mechanisms that give stakeholders voice: advisory boards, expanded disclosure requirements, compensation structures tied to stakeholder outcomes, procurement standards extending accountability through supply chains. The thesis is not that firms should be nice. It is that firms whose decision architectures internalize stakeholder impact outperform firms that externalize it, over time horizons long enough for the externalized costs to matter. AI makes stakeholder accountability urgent because AI-driven decisions affect stakeholders at a speed that traditional accountability mechanisms cannot match. Embedding stakeholder voice in the decision architecture itself—not as afterthought or review process—becomes the condition for maintaining the relational contracts on which long-term value creation depends.