Stewardship Management in Organizational Contexts: A Paradigm for Sustainable and Ethical Leadership

Abstract

Stewardship management represents a transformative paradigm in organizational leadership, emphasizing responsibility, accountability, trust, and sustainability over short-term efficiency. This research develops a comprehensive theoretical and empirical framework for stewardship management, integrating governance theory, psychological foundations, stakeholder perspectives, and quantitative validation. Using regression modeling, the study demonstrates that stewardship orientation significantly predicts organizational performance, mediated by employee engagement and stakeholder trust. The findings contribute to organizational theory by empirically validating stewardship as a robust governance alternative to agency-based models. Sectoral applications across corporate organizations, higher education institutions, and nonprofit sectors are explored, with specific attention to emerging governance contexts in India.