The identification of rationalities that underline policies for stakeholders as a strategy to enable the implementation of projects of corporate social responsibility is a contemporary and relevant research topic. Based on this, the aim of this article is to present and discuss some of the contributions of the literature towards the construction of a support theory that justifies the adoption of policies for stakeholders by organizations. The propositions suggested by the normative and the instrumental theories are analyzed. Generally speaking, the former is based on moral premises of how agents and organizations must conduct their actions whereas the latter, which is rooted in economics, highlight the basic elements to design the policies for stakeholders. A more fine-grained analysis of this topic requires robust theoretical contributions that consider not only ethical and philosophical principles, but also economic and organizational principles. In doing so, one is able to further our understanding about the complexity of organizational actions that goes beyond a manichean perspective.