Identifying and managing defence and security stakeholders: a systematic literature review, bibliometric analysis and maturity assessment

ABSTRACT

This paper’s purpose is to systematically analyse and understand the complexity of strategic-level stakeholder management within defence. Empirical data was collected via a rigorous systematic literature review of 10,369 manuscripts contained within the Web of Science, with 206 A1 studies constituting the final paper set. This was followed by bibliometric and maturity analysis leading to extraction, synthesis and integration of insights. In doing so, knowledge on defence stakeholders is consolidated beyond the traditional field of political science. The results illuminate aspects of stakeholder network complexity, including stakeholders that need to be better understood and holistic frameworks important for contextualising initiatives. Further, the need to move beyond bilaterally-focussed relationships towards the consideration of the larger ecosystem is emphasized. Finally, managers are encouraged to internalise engagement capabilities, able to continuously balance diverse stakeholder cultures and interests. Thereby, contributions are made towards the development of descriptive, instrumental and normative stakeholder theory within defence.

KEYWORDS:

• Defence
• stakeholder management
• systematic literature review
• security
• policy
• strategy

Acknowledgments

First, we would like to thank Yaroslav Spichak, Sofia Flores, Juan Villalobos and Diego Tovar-Lopenza of UCF who took part in initial reviews of the SLR process within the context of their (post)graduate work. Their contribution to the overall study is invaluable. We are equally grateful to the members of the NATO SAS-152 workgroup for their continuous feedback. Finally, we acknowledge funding from the Royal High Institute for Defence (Belgium) under grant HFM 18-4.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14702436.2024.2361077

Notes

1. Such as defence, security, stakeholder management, foreign policy and strategic communication.

2. Such as peace and war.

3. These are listed in annexe one. All annexes are provided as supplemental material.

4. i.e. the number of papers from the scoping study that are captured.

5. These terms may be found in the search string provided in annexe two.

6. A comparison to other SLR’s identified is provided in annexe eight.

7. For example, post 09 September 2001 or the 2014 Ukraine invasion.

8. This can be visualised in annexe three.

9. Additional analysis is presented in annexe 4.

10. Not all these disciplines are formally connected as in a social network analysis. However closely related disciplines are grouped proximally for inference purposes. While the size of the node is proportional to the number of publications originating from each discipline, the thickness of the line between disciplines reflects the number of times authors from these disciplines have published together.

11. A deeper analysis is provided in annexe 5.

12. The size of the node is proportional to the number of publications from a given institution whereas the width of the tie is proportional to the amount of co-publications. With the color-codes reflecting the author’s discipline, the results are further grouped based on the institutions’ geographic location.

13. States of Texas, California and Georgia.

14. Such as between the University of Essex, the University of Texas and Georgia State University.

15. The size of the bubble represents the total number of papers discussing a given stakeholder while the thickness of the tie represents the number of times any two stakeholders are addressed in the same paper. An extract of the stakeholder group count for the most prominent papers as well as the stakeholder co-occurrence matrix are provided in the annexe six on “content characteristics”

16. Despite all E.U. and NATO countries not having participated in the study, their representation within figure seven remains coherent with the vertical sorting. Countries having participated include Belgium, Canada, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

17. James Meernik who is the lead author with six publications in the final paper set is a prime example.

18. The group “theory and research methods,” not depicted in the figure, has a count of 31.

19. An extract is provided in annexe six.

20. These results are available in table form in annexe six.

21. This number is significantly influenced by the publications received from the NATO SME’s as they constitute one third of the data points.

22. Available in annexe seven.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Royal High Institute for Defence (Belgium) under grant [HFM 18-4].

Notes on contributors

Joaquim Soares

Joaquim Soares is an officer in the Belgian Defence’ strategy department and a Joint PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp and the Royal Military Academy (Brussels). He has previously published on defence and management topics including performance management and comprehensive defence.

William Demeyere

William Demeyere is an officer in the Belgian Defence. He studied at the Royal Military Academy (RMA) where he obtained a Master’s degree in Social and Military Sciences, specialising in Management and Weapons systems.

Heather Keathley-Herring

Heather Keathley-Herring is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Department at the University of Central Florida. She holds a dual doctoral degree from the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech and the DEML Department of the RMA.

Geert Letens

Geert Letens is a Professor and Colonel in the DEML Department of the RMA and a research fellow at the Vlerick Business School. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Ghent University and in Social and Military Sciences from the RMA.