Stakeholder management: A theoretical analysis of the PMBOK® Guide

Abstract

Professional certification is an important part of many specialized occupations. For project managers, one certifying body is the Project Management Institute (PMI). To achieve their certification(s), project managers must demonstrate proficiency in a wide variety of associated skills and agree to abide by the PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. In this paper, we briefly review the underlying ethical theoretical foundation of stakeholder theory and the PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. We assessed the PMBOK® Guide to determine where the approach is one of management of stakeholders versus one of management for stakeholders. The areas where there may be inconsistencies between stakeholder theory, the expected codes of ethical and professional conduct for project managers, and the PMBOK® Guide were identified using content analysis. It is our finding that when project achievement is stressed in the PMBOK® Guide, project managers may fail to place a priority on their moral obligation to protect stakeholders and may fail to demonstrate the PMI established values of responsibility, respect, fairness, and honesty.