Over the last decade, expanded participation among stakeholders has been increasingly adopted by both public and private organizations in different domains. This approach is used to strengthen the involvement of stakeholders in decision-making processes about meaningful decisions that will affect their communities. This paper aims to review, categorize, and offer a better understanding of the different issues that stakeholders' participation processes (SPPs). To meet this aim, a systematic literature review has been conducted. This paper has two main contributions. First, it presents a typology of issues that is arranged in nine categories: economic, efficiency and effectiveness, ethical, legislative, political, administration, socioeconomic, stakeholders and social, and technology. Second, it proposes a conceptual model of SPPs dimensions of issues. A real-world scenario of use of the proposed conceptual model and recommendations are presented. •A systematic literature review provides an overview of the existing knowledge on stakeholders' participation processes (SPPs)•SPPs implementation faces nine multidisciplinary categories of issues.•SPPs categories of issues are grouped into four dimensions, which are Application, Governance, Stakeholders and Society.•A real-word scenario illustrates the applicability of the conceptual model in planning and assessing SPPs.•Recommendations are identified to face these issues.