MGMT3102 Chap.3 Power, Legitimacy, Urgency and Salience
Power, Legitimacy, Urgency and Salience
Salience explains why some stakeholder claims receive managerial attention and others do not. Mitchell, Agle and Wood sort stakeholders by three attributes, power, legitimacy and urgency, into latent, expectant and definitive classes and seven named types.
This chapter adds the descriptive, instrumental and normative lenses on stakeholder theory, the gap between who managers do and should prioritise, Bridoux and Vishwanathan's point about powerful stakeholders, and the ways a group can move between classes.
This is the most heavily used framework in the course, and the one the Week 4 presentation and the simulation briefings both ask you to apply.
The free worked example classifies three parties in a hospital closure; the full chapter repairs a misread salience matrix, traces how a group gains a missing attribute, and shows how to write descriptive and normative judgements in separate sentences so that a marker can credit both.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Power and its coercive, utilitarian and normative bases
- 02
Legitimacy as a socially constructed judgement
- 03
Urgency as time sensitivity plus criticality
- 04
Latent, expectant and definitive stakeholders
- 05
Dormant, discretionary, demanding, dominant, dangerous, dependent and definitive types
- 06
Descriptive, instrumental and normative lenses
- 07
How advocacy, coalitions, visibility and regulation change salience
Worked example · free
Classifying stakeholders in a hospital closure
- +2Mothers-to-be hold legitimate claims, based on exposure to harm, and urgent ones, because births cannot wait; with little power they are dependent.
- +2The union holds power through strike action and legitimacy as members' representative; the strike threat adds urgency, making it definitive.
- +1The commentator has no affected interest and no deadline that matters to them, only some symbolic power through online visibility, so at most a dormant stakeholder with low salience; the mothers' claim is the one most at risk of being overlooked.
Key terms
- Latent stakeholder
- A stakeholder holding only one of power, legitimacy and urgency, and therefore receiving little managerial attention.
- Expectant stakeholder
- A stakeholder holding two of the three attributes, with moderate salience.
- Definitive stakeholder
- A stakeholder holding power, legitimacy and urgency together, which gives managers a clear and immediate mandate to respond.
- Dangerous stakeholder
- A stakeholder with power and urgency but no legitimacy, whose claims may be pressed through coercive means.
- Managerial latitude
- The space managers have to balance competing claims, which powerful stakeholders can narrow.
- Normative stakeholder theory
- The lens that asks which stakeholders managers should consider and how conflicting claims ought to be balanced.
Power, Legitimacy, Urgency and Salience FAQ
What makes a stakeholder definitive?
Holding power, legitimacy and urgency at the same time, as perceived by managers. Mitchell, Agle and Wood note that the most common route is a dominant stakeholder, which already has power and legitimacy, gaining urgency, as shareholders do when share values fall sharply.
Is a highly salient stakeholder the one managers should serve first?
Not by that fact alone. Salience describes who is likely to receive attention. Whether that ranking is right is a normative question judged through rights, harms, fairness and long-term consequences, and the seminar asks you to name the gap between the two.
What is the difference between a dependent and a dangerous stakeholder?
Both hold urgency. A dependent stakeholder adds legitimacy but lacks power, so it relies on allies such as courts or regulators. A dangerous stakeholder adds power but lacks legitimacy, and may press its claim through coercive tactics such as blockades or wildcat strikes.
Can a stakeholder's salience change?
Yes. Attributes are variable and socially constructed, so advocacy, a coalition with a powerful actor, media visibility or new regulation can add the missing attribute. Any expectant stakeholder becomes definitive once it acquires the attribute it lacked.
Whose perception decides salience?
Mitchell, Agle and Wood assume that managers' perceptions decide it, which means a stakeholder with real power that managers fail to notice is treated as if it had none. In an answer, say whether you are describing what managers see or offering your own evaluation as the analyst.
Exam move
Draw the three-circle diagram from memory and fill in all seven types with their attribute pairs. Then take three news stories and classify two stakeholders in each, writing one line of evidence for every attribute. Finish each with one sentence on who should receive attention and why, so you practise the descriptive and normative steps together.
When you revise, test yourself on the movement between classes as well as the classes themselves.
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