Tackling grand challenges requires coordination and sustained effort among multiple organizations and stakeholders. Yet research on stakeholder theory has been conceptually constrained in capturing this complexity: existing accounts tend to focus either on dyadic level firm–stakeholder ties or on stakeholder networks within which the focal organization is embedded. We suggest that addressing grand challenges requires a more generative conceptualization of organizations and their constituents as stakeholder systems. Using the metaphor of ballet and insights from dance theory, we highlight four defining dimensions of stakeholder systems (two structural and two dyadic); we proceed to offer a dynamic model of how those dimensions may interact and coevolve. Our metaphor and resulting theory of stakeholder systems are thereby well equipped to incorporate the complexity of tackling grand challenges, where many contemporary stakeholder arrangements are oriented around issues rather than firms.

应对重大挑战需要多个组织和利益相关者之间的协调和持续努力。然而，利益相关者理论的研究在捕捉这种复杂性方面在概念上受到限制：现有账户倾向于关注二元层面的公司-利益相关者关系，或者关注焦点组织所在的利益相关者网络。我们建议，应对重大挑战需要将组织及其成员作为利益相关者系统进行更具生成性的概念化。使用芭蕾舞的比喻和舞蹈理论的见解，我们强调利益相关者系统的四个定义维度（两个结构和两个二元）；我们继续提供这些维度如何相互作用和共同演化的动态模型。因此，我们对利益相关者系统的隐喻和由此产生的理论能够很好地融入应对重大挑战的复杂性，在这些挑战中，许多当代利益相关者安排都是围绕问题而不是公司进行的。