Collaboration, consensus building and value creation through organic multi-stakeholder initiatives

Multi-stakeholder initiatives are an important instrument to improve the social and environmental performance of global supply chains. However, MSIs that are "monological" or "positivist" are often ineffective due to a lack of consensus between stakeholders involved. We focus our inquiry around the question: how can consensus be built among diverse stakeholders in global supply chains through MSI initiatives? Specifically we look at ways to enact the normative values of the “collaborative paradigm” while enabling and sustaining cooperation among stakeholders to make MSIs work effectively. Building on the idea of collaboration, value creation for stakeholders and consensus building, we develop an “organic” model of MSIs to show how MSIs can use dialogue and consensus building as core mechanisms to bring stakeholders together to create value for each. In so doing, we contribute to research on both MSIs and stakeholder theory.