Cities through the lens of Stakeholder Theory: A literature review

This paper mapped and explored the intellectual structure and the mainstream research on stakeholder theory in the urban context and urban management through co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and social network analysis. We found two main intellectual structures: “Urban Strategy” and “Urban Marketing”; which emphasize issues related to environmental management, environmental performance, and collaborative urban governance. “Urban Strategy” is focused on meeting urban stakeholders' expectations through value creation. While “Urban Marketing” manages urban image attractiveness. We also identified three mainstream research themes: “Sustainable Urban Strategy” that arises from “Urban Strategy” and emphasizes sustainability; “Urban Marketing” also doubles as a mainstream research theme with the same features; and “Power of Networks” reveals how sustainable urban governance relates to relational capital, social capital, and partnerships in an urban context. The interface of the intellectual structure and mainstream research with stakeholder theory is discussed using constructs such as value creation and salience. We conclude with implications for policy-makers, local communities, scholars, and urban planners.