Emerald Open Research Open Peer Review Discuss this article (0) Comments OPINION ARTICLE Responsible management on the organizational frontline: A stewardship perspective [version 1; referees: awaiting peer review] Ko de Ruyter , Debbie Keeling 3 King’s College Business School, King's College London SE1 1UL, London, UK School of Marketing, UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia The University of Sussex Business School, The University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9SL, UK Abstract Responsible management has become a business imperative in an era of growing governmental and public scrutiny of managerial practices and accountability. Top-down attempts at developing transparent codes of practice or agenda statements have been ineffective, especially given the difficulties of aligning responsibility needs with traditional performance indicators. Thus, we argue, there is a pertinent need to foster a sustainable sense of moral responsibility at the organizational frontline. We posit that stewardship offers a foundation for developing sustainable solutions based on aligning the interests of stakeholders and balancing longer-term and shorter-term benefits. Three principal stakeholders are involved at the organisational frontline; frontline management (FLM), frontline employees (FLE) and customers. Accordingly, we identify three key areas requiring development: stewardship-based control systems, climate and customers on the organizational frontline. We illustrate these areas with pertinent research and, hence, collate a research agenda across these areas to facilitate the development and embedding of responsible management based on a stewardship foundation. Keywords Stewardship, responsible management, control systems, climate, customers, organizational frontline, frontline management, frontline employees Ko de Ruyter ( ) Corresponding author: ko.de_ruyter@kcl.ac.uk : Conceptualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing; : Conceptualization, Author roles: de Ruyter K Keeling D Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing No competing interests were disclosed. Competing interests: The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work. Grant information: © 2019 de Ruyter K and Keeling D. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Licence de Ruyter K and Keeling D. How to cite this article: Responsible management on the organizational frontline: A stewardship perspective Emerald Open Research 2019, :6 ( ) [version 1; referees: awaiting peer review] 1 https://doi.org/10.12688/emeraldopenres.12908.1 28 Jan 2019, :6 ( ) First published: 1 https://doi.org/10.12688/emeraldopenres.12908.1 1,2 3 1 2 3 Referee Status: AWAITING PEER REVIEW 28 Jan 2019, :6 ( First published: 1 ) https://doi.org/10.12688/emeraldopenres.12908.1 28 Jan 2019, :6 ( Latest published: 1 ) https://doi.org/10.12688/emeraldopenres.12908.1 v1 Page 1 of 5 Emerald Open Research 2019, 1:6 Last updated: 28 JAN 2019