The stakeholder challenge: dealing with challenging situations involving stakeholders (original) (raw)

Stakeholder and Conflict Analysis

Scope: questions/ challenges the tool addresses Stakeholder and Conflict Analysis (SCA) provides a structured way to identify stakeholders, and to explore how potential interactions among them may affect a project. The motivation for developing and using the SCA tool is the ubiquity of conflict over water quality and quantity. Water, if scarce or polluted, can pose a threat to livelihood security. Conflicts can arise between downstream water-users dependant on a water source and upstream users who affect its quality or quantity in ways that make " normal " downstream activities impossible. But water scarcity or pollution may also serve as an incentive for water users to cooperate in actions that help improve water quality and quantity. (Swain, p.1, 2004) There are various types of conflicts, some more intractable and prone to violence than others. Conflicts can be social, ethnic, political or solely based on access to land and water resources. Conflict over water resources is ubiquitous, and the manner in which it unfolds and the way it is managed is important. When it comes to use and sharing of resources, it is not always possible to satisfy all stakeholders all of the time. Although conflicts cannot always be fully resolved, but there is often some room for conflict management. Therefore, ways are needed whereby stakeholders can cooperate in " agreeing to disagree ". Conflicts tend to consume resources that could be used for development. They can weaken a region's social structure as well as undermine poverty reduction efforts. It is therefore important to identify stakeholders: the people, groups or organisations that must be involved in siting, building and managing small reservoirs. The next step is to identify how stakeholders are (or potentially could be) involved in these activities, and what are the potential and existing relationships among stakeholders, so that possibilities for cooperation, conflict and competition can be identified. This can lead to better understanding on how to foster appropriate forms of stakeholder engagement. Target group of the tool Anyone helping to organize small reservoir projects, including water resources managers, water engineers, rural district council planners, policy makers, communities, and non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) The tool is intended to be used in project strategic planning and risk management.

Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2: Relationships, Communication, Reporting and Performance

2003

Recently, significant attention has been directed to the relations between corporations and their stakeholders. A growing number of academic studies have proposed that corporations should consider the interests of their stakeholders, whether for ethical reasons (Freeman 1984; Donaldson and Preston 1995; Evan and Freeman 1988) or for the achievement of strategic/economic objectives (Jones 1995; Frooman 1999; Maignan et al. 1999). As a result, corporations have experienced pressure to provide a broader range of information (e.g. data on environmental and social performance, equal-opportunity employment practices, consumer protection) to a wider range of stakeholders. Several high-profile multinational corporations such as Shell, Levi-Strauss and Nike have joined the ranks of progressive niche companies such as The Body Shop to argue vigorously that they have listened and responded to their various internal and external stakeholders, including their critics (see McIntosh et al. 1998). At the same time, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace, WWF, Environmental Defense, Amnesty International, Oxfam and Save the Children have also embraced a more collaborative approach to their relations with business (see Murphy and Bendell 1997; McIntosh et al. 1998; Bendell 2000). The pressure to communicate more proactively and more frequently with stakeholders suggests that firms need to, and perhaps do, engage a newly diverse range of stakeholders through enhanced inclusiveness, partnership and dialogue. This trend has significant implications for methods and responsibilities entailed in stakeholder communication that to date are not well understood. In this chapter, we examine the potential effects of more sophisticated concepts of stakeholder relationships on stakeholder communication. We consider first the impacts of a complex understanding of stakeholder relations on one-way communication models that offer alternatives of standardising or tailoring messages. Then, we deal with more interactive forms of communication, focusing specifically on the issue of stakeholder

Developing Stakeholder Theory

Journal of Management Studies, 2002

 Previous literature has led to a lack of appreciation of: the range of organization/stakeholder relations that can occur; the extent to which such relations change over time; as well as how and why such changes occur. In particular, extremely negative and highly conflicting relations between organizations and stakeholders have been ignored. Due to this lack of appreciation it is argued that current attempts at integrating the separate strands of stakeholder theory to achieve a convergent stakeholder theory are premature. A model is presented which combines stakeholder theory with a realist theory of social change and differentiation. This model is intended to highlight why it is important to distinguish different stakeholders. The model also enables an analysis of the organization/stakeholder relationship, which is not exclusively from the organization perspective and which is capable of illuminating why and how organization/stakeholder relations change over time. The history of Greenpeace is used as an example.

From monologue to dialogue: Key considerations for an approach to multiple stakeholder engagement

2018

Amidst challenges of economic uncertainty, resource constraints, social movement and unrest, increased pressure is placed on organisations to address diverse stakeholder expectations. Stakeholders are central to the success of an organisation, and this fact compels the latter to engage, be more transparent and respond to stakeholder concerns. Stakeholder engagement is an integral part of ensuring organisational sustainability and success, as it utilises strategic direction and operational excellence to serve as tools for competitive advantage. Contemporary organisations have realised there are opportunities to be derived from changing the nature of organisation– stakeholder relationships, from control to collaboration, from exchange to engagement. With the emergence of strategic communication as an all-encompassing function to achieve the mission of the organisation, the task of the strategic communication professional is to facilitate stakeholder engagement strategies that will eli...

Moving the stakeholder journey forward

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Though the customer journey (CJ) is gaining traction, its limited customer focus overlooks the dynamics characterizing other stakeholders' (e.g., employees'/suppliers') journeys, thus calling for an extension to the stakeholder journey (SJ). Addressing this gap, we advance the SJ, which covers any stakeholder's journey with the firm. We argue that firms' consideration of the SJ, defined as a stakeholder's trajectory of role-related touchpoints and activities, enacted through stakeholder engagement, that collectively shape the stakeholder experience with the firm, enhances their stakeholder relationship management and performance outcomes. We also view the SJ in a network of intersecting journeys that are characterized by interdependence theory's structural tenets of stakeholder control, covariation of interest, mutuality of dependence, information availability, and temporal journey structure, which we view to impact stakeholders' journey-based engagement and experience, as formalized in a set of Propositions. We conclude with theoretical (e.g., further research) and practical (e.g., SJ design/ management) implications.

Stakeholder theory: issues to resolve

Management Decision, 2011

Purpose -The objective of this paper is to collate and debate the main issues driving the stakeholder theory academic debate. Design/methodology/approach -First, a discussion of the stakeholder concept is set out before moving on to the history and nature of stakeholder theory. The work proceeds with an attempt to bring together systematically the points of divergence among researchers interested in stakeholder theory, and, finally, there is a brief discussion of these theoretical loopholes in conjunction with a proposed research agenda for the field. Findings -Based on the unification of the theoretically problematic issues, research agenda are put forward with the objective of clarifying doubts and resolving the controversies ongoing among academics. As regards the formulation of stakeholder theory, one question requiring resolution is that of the stakeholder concept itself. Additionally, further research should focus on the boundaries as to what constitutes a stakeholder group as well as defining the criteria for attributing individual membership of one or another group. In practical theoretical application, it is correspondingly necessary to target research on aspects such as conflicts of interest between stakeholders and management difficulties in coping with multiple objectives. Finally, there is a need for research that systematizes the knowledge produced with the objective of attaining the theoretical convergence necessary for the development of stakeholder theory. Originality/value -The main contribution of this paper derives from the systematization of the various shortcomings that need overcoming within the framework of stakeholder theory and the identification of research agendas.