The Grey Zone of Stakeholder Engagement: Misalignment as a Manifestation of Greyness in Stakeholder Collaboration
识别并概念化了利益相关者参与的灰色地带，通过对43位循环经济利益相关者的访谈分析，展示了灰色地带如何在个体、组织和社会层面表现为实践与思维的错位，有助于理解利益相关者协作。
ABSTRACT This study identifies and conceptualises the grey zone of stakeholder engagement and explores how it manifests in a collaborative context related to the promotion of a circular economy. While prior research on stakeholder engagement has highlighted the positive, value‐creating bright side or the harmful dark side of stakeholder engagement, we show that even when stakeholders have a shared goal and engagement is organised collaboratively, it contains a more subtle space where everyday challenges and inconveniences unfold. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of interviews with 43 circular‐economy stakeholders, we identify and conceptualise this grey zone and demonstrate how it manifests in misalignment of practices and mindsets at the individual, organisational, and societal levels. Recognising the grey zone as a natural and unavoidable part of stakeholder engagement is essential for understanding stakeholder collaboration and strengthening stakeholder theory and its applicability.