MGMT3102 Chap.2 Identifying Stakeholders: Definitions and Categories
Identifying Stakeholders: Definitions and Categories
Stakeholder identification asks who has a stake before anyone is ranked. This chapter covers the five tests for inclusion used in Week 2, three definitions of a stakeholder and the boundary each one draws, the difference between primary and secondary stakeholders, Chandler's four categories, and the distinction between identification, which is about inclusion, and salience, which is about attention.
The paid chapter's worked map applies all of it to an invented delivery-platform decision.
Identification is where most case answers quietly lose marks, because a short list of obvious parties makes every later step narrower. The habit this chapter builds is simple: write each party with the test it passes, check the four categories for empty corners, and only then move on to ranking.
The worked map practises that habit on a hospital parking decision, and the practice questions ask how a secondary stakeholder such as the media can move to the centre of attention.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Who counts, whose claims are noticed, and whose claims deserve notice
- 02
Five tests: affects, is affected, provides resources, bears risk, speaks for others
- 03
Mutual dependence, affect or affected, and contribution, benefit or risk
- 04
Primary and secondary stakeholders and why secondary is not unimportant
- 05
Organisational, economic, societal and ecological categories
- 06
Identification as inclusion and salience as attention
Worked example · free
Building a justified stakeholder map for a hospital car park decision
- +1Nurses on night shifts are affected and bear risk, because paid parking raises costs and pushes some to park further away after dark.
- +1Patients and visitors are affected if staff now compete with them for public spaces nearby.
- +1Investors provide resources and expect the new wing to lift revenue.
- +1The nurses' union can affect the decision through bargaining and public statements.
- +1Neighbouring residents are easy to miss: they bear the overflow of cars into their streets and have no formal relationship with the hospital.
Key terms
- Stakeholder identification
- The first step of stakeholder analysis, deciding who has a stake because they affect, are affected by, contribute to or bear risk from a decision.
- Primary stakeholder
- A party with a continuing relationship central to the organisation's operation or survival, such as employees, customers, suppliers or investors.
- Secondary stakeholder
- A party that can influence the organisation or feel its effects while standing outside its core transactions, such as the media or advocacy groups.
- Mutual dependence
- A definition of stakeholders as those the firm depends on and those who depend on the firm.
- Ecological stakeholder
- A category in Chandler's grouping covering the environment, future generations and non-human life, usually represented by others.
Identifying Stakeholders: Definitions and Categories FAQ
What tests decide whether a group belongs on a stakeholder map?
The Week 2 seminar uses five: the group affects the decision, is affected by it, provides resources or support, bears risk or potential harm, or represents something that cannot easily speak for itself. Passing any one test is enough for inclusion; ranking comes later, under salience.
Are secondary stakeholders less important than primary ones?
Not necessarily. Secondary stakeholders sit outside core transactions, but the seminar stresses that they can become highly salient once they gain power, legitimacy or urgency, for example when an advocacy group's findings reach the news and a regulator responds.
Which stakeholder definition should I use in a case answer?
Choose the one that fits the question and say why. Freeman's broad affect-or-affected definition admits harmed outsiders, mutual dependence focuses on parties the firm relies on, and the contribution, benefit or risk version highlights who carries exposure. Naming the definition shows the marker why certain parties appear on your map.
Why separate identification from salience?
Identification is about inclusion and salience is about attention. Keeping them apart lets you show that a group belongs on the map even when managers ignore it, which is the starting point for any argument about responsible management.
Who usually gets left off a stakeholder map?
Parties without a voice of their own are the most often missed: future residents, the environment, children, workers several tiers down a supply chain, and households that depend on an affected worker's income. The fifth inclusion test, representing those who cannot easily speak for themselves, exists to catch them.
Exam move
Practise on one real decision a week: write every party, the inclusion test it passes, and its category, before you rank anything. Then check the map against the four categories and add anyone missing from the ecological and societal corners. Keep the three definitions in a small comparison table and note which party each one would leave out.
Keep a short list of easily missed parties from your own practice, and reread it before every case answer.
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