STAKEHOLDER
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3171 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Human sciences |
- “Any individual, group, organization, institution that can affect as well as be affected by an individual's, group's, organization's, or institution's policy or policies” (I.I. MITROFF and H.A. LINSTONE, 1993, p.141).
The authors comment: “The bigger, the more complex the problem, the more it is likely to involve a wider array of stakeholders” (p.141).
In a very general way, issues, problems and situations are considered within a quite restricted ring of stakeholders. This leads to quite negative consequences:
- the matter under consideration is insufficiently described and understood (underconceptualization)
- decisions are made or plans established which do not take in account some important aspects
- As a result, they may lead to new problems, or even the resurgence of the same ones
- Stakeholders who were not called to participate and feel harmed or simply do not understand the way matters are managed, become diffident or even hostile, do not lend their collaboration and possibly will sabotage.
Identification of the stakeholders is thus a previous and very important step in any design, planning or decision making process (see hereafter).
A most important characteristic of stakeholders is that they have assumptions about the problem, in many cases implicit and unconscious, or at least not overtly declared. It is necessary to make these assumptions appear clearly.
MITROFF and LINSTONE show how to establish maps of stakeholders assumptions, in a qualitative and quantitative way (p.144).
See also
J. WARFIELD'S works.