Stewardship

A steward is someone who manages or takes care of another person's property, person, or other assets when those assets are put in trust to that individual. [Page 2004]In most conceptions of stewardship, the steward is supposed to place personal interests below those of other people or below the interests of the collective as a whole. In management theory, the concept of stewardship requires managers to subordinate their own personal interests to those of the organization as a whole.

There are several major theories of stewardship in the management literature. One version of stewardship is that managers are stewards or caretakers for the invested resources of companies' owners or shareholders. In this view, which can be found in economic theories of the firm, managers have a ...