R. Edward Freeman

Robert Edward Freeman (born 1951) is an American philosopher and professor of business administration at the Darden School at the University of Virginia, best known for his 1984 formulation of stakeholder theory and for his broader work on business ethics. Educated at Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis, he has also held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pennsylvania, and his stakeholder framework became one of the most widely taught approaches to thinking about a company's obligations to employees, customers, communities and shareholders alike.