An Analytical Approach to (Meta)Relational Models Theory, and its Application to Triple Bottom Line (Profit, People, Planet) -- Towards Social Relations Portfolio Management

Abstract: Investigating the optimal nature of social interactions among generic actors (e.g., people or firms), aiming to achieve specifically-agreed objectives, has been the subject of extensive academic research. Using the relational models theory - comprehensively describing all social interactions among actors as combinations of only four forms of sociality: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing - the common approach within the literature revolves around qualitative assessments of the sociality models' configurations most effective in realizing predefined purposes, at times supplemented by empirical data. In this treatment, we formulate this question as a mathematical optimization problem, in order to quantitatively determine the best possible configurations of sociality forms between dyadic actors which would optimize their mutually-agreed objectives. For this purpose, we develop an analytical framework for quantifying the (meta)relational models theory, and mathematically demonstrate that combining the four sociality forms within a specific meaningful social interaction inevitably prompts an inherent tension among them, through a single elementary and universal metarelation. In analogy with financial portfolio management, we subsequently introduce the concept of Social Relations Portfolio (SRP) management, and propose a generalizable procedural methodology capable of quantitatively identifying the efficient SRP for any objective involving meaningful social relations. As an important illustration, the methodology is applied to the Triple Bottom Line paradigm to derive its efficient SRP, guiding practitioners in precisely measuring, monitoring, reporting and (proactively) steering stakeholder management efforts regarding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) within and / or across organizations.