This study explores the heritage of stewardship in organizational contexts through the lens of indigenous organizing, offering a holistic conception of stewardship as an alternative to conventional management approaches. We critique conventional conceptualizations of stewardship, which tend to absolve humanity from accountability in resource use, prioritizing short-term profit over sustainability, and propose a model rooted in custodial ethics, aligning with systems thinking to promote sustainability and adaptive management. Drawing on a spectrum of stewardship practices that integrates both historical and futuristic perspectives, we identify three primary forms: exploitative, ethical, and holistic stewardship. Our proposed holistic stewardship model, grounded in the tenets of indigenous organizing, emphasizes interconnection, mutual reliance, and sustainability, positioning it as a viable framework to address socio-ecological crises. This paradigm broadens the scope of organizational accountability and sustainability, providing a transformative pathway for management theory and practice to address sustainability.
