Towards new forms of governance for issues of sustainability: renewing relationships between corporates, government and community

The leading theories of democracy and stakeholder inclusion from traditional democratic theory demonstrate major limitations in conceptualising these interactions in terms of inclusion or equity, key requisites for the achievement of sustainability. Leading interpretations of management theory are also limited, either constrained by narrow concepts of economic development and shareholder accountability or lost in a directionless argument concerning stakeholder priorities. However, more critical views from political theory such as radical pluralism and deliberative democracy closely correspond to emergent concepts in management theory. We argue this correspondence justifies the incorporation of these concepts in a model of inter-organisational governance that would have the capacity to provide good governance of sustainability related issues.