Stakeholder, any individual, social group, or actor who possesses an interest, a legal obligation, a moral right, or other concern in the decisions or outcomes of an organization, typically a business firm, corporation, or government. Stakeholders either affect or are affected by the achievement of an organization’s objectives.
In a corporate context, the term stakeholder was introduced in the 1960s by the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) as a generalization of the terms stockholder or shareholder. SRI’s work was focused on firms, and the stakeholder concept was focused on the firm’s most closely related actors. From the mid-1980s, the meaning of the concept was stretched through the development of its social and political dimensions, making it a key concept for governance in general.
In general, stakeholders will be divided based on their position, power, and influence. The following are the types of stakeholders.
Primary stakeholders are stakeholders who are closely related to the formulation of policies, projects, and programs. They are the most important determinants in the company's decision-making activities. Some examples of these primary stakeholders are:
Community and Community Leaders: The community is the party that will be directly affected by a policy, program or project. While community leaders are community members who are able to convey the aspirations of the community.
Public Manager: The public manager is the party who has the responsibility for making decisions and implementing them.
Secondary stakeholders are parties who will not be directly related to a program, policy or project. However, primary stakeholders have a sense of concern and concern, so they participate in expressing their opinions which have the potential to change the attitudes of primary stakeholders and official government decisions.
Some examples of secondary stakeholders are:
Government agencies that are in a certain area but do not have direct responsibility.
A government agency that is closely related to the problem, but does not have the authority to make decisions.
The NGO or Non-Governmental Organization that focuses on the impact, plan or benefit of a policy.
Universities, academic groups that have direct influence on government policy-making processes.
Entrepreneurs or business entities that are directly related to the problem.
Key stakeholders are groups of executives who have official authority over decision making. Some examples of key stakeholders in a district government project are the district government, district parliament, and the agency directly responsible for the project.
The stakeholders will usually hold meetings that invite company executives such as directors and other groups who have important authority within a company. They have the right to make policies or voice their ideas for the company. In addition, they also have the authority to appoint and fire company leaders.
Several stakeholders also turned out to be directly involved in the management of the company. Those who hold certain positions such as HRD, R&D, etc. is the person responsible for managing the company's business and ensuring the company's immediate success. In general, a private company or public company will provide a special bench for large investors so that they can participate directly in business activities at the managerial level.
Previously we discussed that investors are one of the stakeholders in a company. For this reason, they can decide to reduce or increase their investment assets in the company based on the company's financial condition. For this reason, companies must build good relationships and bonds with stakeholders.
In terms of balancing roles and relationships between stakeholders, companies must have social responsibility or commonly known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Some examples of the responsibilities of stakeholders or stakeholders are as follows.
Employers can have social responsibilities to employees, such as providing comfortable and appropriate facilities for their employees, providing salaries in accordance with written employment agreements, and not discriminating in any way against employees.
Now is the era where consumers are partners, so companies must be good partners for consumers. Through the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approach, the company tries to provide good benefits by selling products and getting them to buy back the company's products.
Currently all companies must have a CSR program as a form of social responsibility to the community. This CRS program can be in the form of providing assistance such as infrastructure for education, health, infrastructure, business platforms, or other things that are needed by the community.
It is important for you entrepreneurs or prospective entrepreneurs to know about stakeholders and how social responsibility to stakeholders is to build strong cooperation between the two in order to achieve the company's vision, mission, and goals to the maximum.