The term ‘Stakeholder’ refers to persons, groups, or organizations that must somehow be taken into account by leaders, managers, and front-line staff. W. Edward Freeman, in now classic text Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach(1984), defined a stakeholder as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives”.For some authors, (for profit organizations) stakeholders can only be people or groups who have the power to directly affect the organization’s future; absent that power, they are not stakeholders.
Any person or organisation who can be positively or negatively impacted by, or cause an impact on the actions of a company. (Freeman, 1984)
The individuals and constituencies that contribute, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to its wealth-creating capacity and activities, and are therefore its potential beneficiaries and / or risk bearers. (Post, Preston & Sachs, 2002)
For Government & non-profit organizations, the definition differs a little. Typical definitions of stakeholder from the public and nonprofit sector literatures include the following variants:
- “All parties who will be affected by or will affect [the organization’s] strategy (Nutt and Backoff 1992: 439)
- “Any person group or organization that can place a claim on the organization’s attention, resources, or output, or is affected by that output” (Bryson 1995: 27)
- “People or small groups with the power to respond to, negotiate with, and change the strategic future of the organization” (Eden and Ackermann 1998: 117)
- “Those individuals or groups who depend on the organization to fulfill their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organization depends” (Johnson and Scholes 2002: 206)
While specific stakeholder definitions vary, this paper takes into account the need for stakeholder support to create and sustain winning coalitions and to ensure long-term viability of organizations, as well as policies, plans, and programs. Key stakeholders must be satisfied, at least minimally, or public policies, organizations, communities, or even countries and civilizations will fail.
A typical list of Stakeholders
- Owners, stockholders & investors
- Banks and creditors
- Partners & suppliers
- Buyers, customers & prospects
- Management
- Employees, unions, works councils
- Competitors
- Government & regulators: local, national, international
- Professional and industry associations
- Media: local, national, trade, financial
- NGOs
- Communities & other interest groups
