A Discussion on Stakeholders and their importance

1. A Discussion on Stakeholders and their importance Concepts, operationalisations and implications Leo Goedegebuure, Oslo, March 16

2. Structure of this morning’s session • What do we mean by “stakeholders” and why is this relevant? • Drawing on Brugha & Varvazovsky (2000) • Theoretical perspectives on stakeholder identification management • Drawing on Mitchell et al (1997) • External and internal stakeholders • Drawing on your own analyses • Management implications • Drawing on an extrapolation of the previous three components

3. Stakeholders: a definition • Stakeholders are those individuals, groups or organizations who • Have an interest (= the stake) in, and • The potential to influence • The mission/objectives and actions of an organization • So: • Who are our stakeholders? • What is their relevance or importance? • How does this play out in terms of past-presence-future?

4. Stakeholders: old/new wine in old/new bottles? • Roots in traditional public administration theories: how to deal with interest groups in designing and implementing policy? • Lindblom’s science of muddling through (1959) • Agenda setting: what get’s on and what not (Hall, 1975) • Kingdom’s visible and hidden participants (1984) • But also roots in management literature: • General Electric Company’s (1930s) four stakeholder groups: customers, employees, general public, shareholders • Freeman: they CAN influence, so you better pay attention to them, i.e. strategies to mobilise, neutralise, or defeat them • So how do we get a grip on stakeholders?

5. Step one: stakeholder identification • Seminal article by Mitchell, Agle and Wood, 1997 • Identification on the basis of three variables: • Power • Legitimacy • Urgency • Which are: • not static, steady state, but change over time • socially constructed, not objective reality • interrelated to determine salience

6. Thus: typology of stakeholders possible • Latent stakeholders -- one attribute • dormant (power) • discretionary (legitimacy) • demanding (urgency) • Expectant stakeholders -- two attributes • dependent (l & u) • dominant (p & l) • dangerous (p & u) • Definitive stakeholders -- all three attributes • Context dependent….

7. Three propositions on ”stakeholder salience” • Stakeholder salience low where only one of the attributes is perceived by leadership to be present • Stakeholder salience is moderate in case of two attributes present • Salience is high if all three attributes are present • So what does this mean??? • It’s perceptional, not an exact science • It’s quite “ruthless”

8. Some implications or consequences • Stakeholders change in salience • they may change classes through gain or loss of attributes • perceptions of institutional leaders may change • Possibilities for pro-active mapping • how are changes in the environment affecting the power, legitimacy and urgency of particular stakeholder groupings? • Hence: an integral part of institutional strategy, policy design and policy implementation!

9. So who are our most salient stakeholders? • Quick syndicate group exercise, 15 minutes: • Group 1: Head of School perspective • Group 2: Faculty Dean perspective • Group 3: Director of Planning perspective • Group 4: Rector/President perspective • Discussion on salience and implications • How robust is all of this? • How can we use it? • What does it tell us in terms of “room to move”?

10. Implications for strategy • Effective relationship management as complement to stakeholder identification, both external and internal • Forging stable relationships under conditions of volatility • reciprocity • responsiveness • The networked university: again external & internal • External: alliances & partnerships • Regional, national and international • intra & inter sector • Internal: alliances & partnerships • the return of the loosely coupled system • uncoupling teaching, research, community service ……..(?!?!?!)