By Frank Ovaitt
The squeaky wheel gets greased. But what if a different wheel is about to fall off the car?
"How much attention does each stakeholder group deserve or require?" is a central question being raised by Dr. Brad Rawlins of Brigham Young University. His newest
research paper, published online by the Institute for Public Relations, reviews several approaches for identifying stakeholders and synthesizes a new model.
The new approach begins by identifying stakeholders according to their connection to the organization. It then proceeds to prioritize stakeholders by their attributes, their
relationship to the issue and, ultimately, their place in the communications strategy.
The Linkages Model, which dates to 1984, is used to identify stakeholders by their relationship to the organization: Functional linkages (e.g., suppliers provide raw
materials while customers receive a company's output), enabling linkages (investors and a favorable regulatory climate make business possible), normative linkages (industry
groups and competitors influence the business environment), and diffused linkages (non-governmental organizations and media also can have a strong influence, even without a
well-defined connection).
The Stakeholder Typology model developed in the late '90s offered a new approach to prioritizing based on the attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency. Parties with only
one of these attributes are latent stakeholders. For example, an activist group may have an urgent issue, but without power or legitimacy it can make demands without
necessarily deserving much management attention.
Two attributes characterize expectant stakeholders - such as employees and investors, who always have a degree of power and a legitimate claim on the resources of the
company. Parties with all three attributes are definitive stakeholders and always take top priority.
What's tricky here is that the real world is a fluid place. Investors or employees are always important to the company, but a suddenly urgent issue can catapult them from
expectant to definitive stakeholder status.
To deal with such constant change, Situational Theory prioritizes stakeholders by the relationship to the situation. Latent publics don't recognize that an issue
affects them or don't consider it much of a problem. Aware publics are more knowledgeable but don't see much need to get involved. Active publics recognize a
significant problem and feel they can do something about it, and so their level of involvement is much higher.
High Stakes
Putting all of this together, Rawlins synthesizes a new model that offers the prospect of prioritizing stakeholders in a way that is especially relevant for communications
managers - by communication strategy. Rawlins defines four distinct groups:
*Advocate stakeholders are both active and supportive. These people should be approached with action-oriented messages and engaged in third-party endorsements, letter-
writing campaigns, donations, investments, attendance at functions, etc.
*Dormant stakeholders aren't ready to be involved. Messages should focus on creating awareness and understanding of issues, or on reducing barriers to action and
increasing emotional attachment to the issue.
*Adversarial stakeholders typically don't respond to defensive messages, which actually can cause these opponents to dig in deeper. Conflict resolution strategies that
seek win-win solutions work better.
*Apathetic stakeholders probably shouldn't be ignored, even though that is often management's gut instinct. A better strategy is to increase awareness of the issue with
an invitation to collaborate before the issue morphs into a crisis. Messages should focus on the salience of the issue and the likely benefits of involvement.
Contact:
Frank Ovaitt is president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations. He can be reached at [email protected].