Sustainable and inclusive stakeholder engagement in long-term energy planning

The research on the concept of stakeholders has a long and rich history, beginning its discourse in management studies. Over time, attention to the parties affected by firms or organisations in various spheres has grown and acquired multiple definitions and concepts. Studies link the definition of stakeholders to their roles, communication with each other and degrees of exposure or influence on the project/study under consideration. However, most studies do not pay sufficient attention to one of the main determinants of a stakeholder's role, namely their active actions and practices that define their relationships and connections with other stakeholders and project itself. This research proposes to examine the concept of stakeholder in terms of actions and practices as a determinant of stakeholder roles. This study also creates a concept considering stakeholder relationship as a continuous and flowing process, where the roles of stakeholders and their designations change according to the changes in their practices and interactions. Thus, the conceptualization of stakeholder based on their actions will contribute to the study of the stakeholder role especially in the field of long-term energy transition in particular, as by building an understanding of the stakeholder roles through the changing practices, that are formed by actions, and fluid systems of interaction between stakeholders it is possible to contribute to creation of a practical methodology of a long-term and successful co-operation in the multi-directional phenomenon of sustainable energy transition. This article contributes to the conference theme by expanding the notion of stakeholders within the scope of sustainable use of natural sources and the long-term energy transition, and by reviewing relevant state-of-the-art stakeholder engagement methodologies with the intention of discovering main research directions and related knowledge gaps.