An ethical systemic stakeholder management approach with reference to marginalized poverty

Purpose This study aims to present how an ethical systemic-applied stakeholder management approach, based on an integration of both business and ethics, can be useful to better include the poor as non-silent or marginalized stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The paper showcases typical theoretical research that applies an ethical systemic stakeholder management view to identify the position of marginalized poor people through a non-instrumental stakeholder theory. Findings The work offers a possibility to enlarge the range and relevance of the stakeholders’ salience of poor people according to an ethical systemic point of view, which can also become a business opportunity, only respecting the refusal of the separation thesis. Practical implications These considerations can be useful for proactive entrepreneurship and managers who are inspired by the more original, in-depth ideas of the stakeholder management approach. Social implications The observations deriving from this work can have an interesting social impact on the marginalized poor people’s considerations of the firm and the civil society. Originality/value Its contributions, starting from authors such as Derry (2012) and Chowdhury et al. (2024), help enlarge the stakeholders’ salience of marginalized poor people, overcoming some “conventional” stakeholder management approaches that do not fit in with the original basic stakeholder management idea.