The Stakeholder Engagement Manual Volume 2 - AccountAbility

Organisational
Response
STRATEGIC
EMBEDDED
DEVELOPING
EXPLORATORY
The Issue Response Matrix
Higher
Opportunity Green
Zone
STAGE 2
LATENT EMERGING CONSOLIDATING INSTITUTIONALISED
C
B
A
Social Maturity of an Issue
Risky Red Zone
The issue response matrix guides you in comparing your company’s way of
dealing with an issue with the maturity of debate about it within society more
broadly. It thereby helps you to identify where you are in a leadership position
and where you are at risk. On the other hand, it also helps you to identify where
you might want to be in relation to an issue under consideration.
Example Application for the Issue Response Matrix: Child Labour in the Supply Chain
There is widespread consensus amongst citizens, consumers, business and governments that children should not be forced to work long
hours in jobs that sacrifi ce their health, safety and education. 141 countries have ratifi ed the ILO Minimum Age Convention and 153 have
ratifi ed the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention. Most of these countries have legislation on their statute books aimed at ending
child labour and many have programmes to combat child labour often with technical or fi nancial support from the ILO or international
donors. A number of industry associations, NGOs and multi-sector initiatives are also working to address the issue, voluntary guidance for
buyers have been developed, and many businesses are working to improve the management and monitoring systems which help avoid
child labour within their supply chains. It can be considered a consolidated issue.
Yet the ILO estimates that 1 in 6 children is at work instead of at school and three-quarters of these are involved in hazardous work.
Amongst companies whose operations and sourcing networks extend into countries and sectors where child labour is endemic, different
levels of response can be seen.
• The business which is still developing its basic policies, where any information it gains about child labour in its supply chain does not
necessarily feed into operational decision making processes, and where there are no performance objectives, would locate its response
at A. Here, the business is vulnerable to advocacy and brand damage, unprepared for potential regulation, and other businesses
leading on the issue may shy away from collaborating with it.
• A business which has systematic management and monitoring processes, policies, targets and ongoing engagement initiatives with
suppliers in place to address and minimise child-labour in its own supply chain would locate its issue response at B and can consider
itself to be in-step with societal development.
• A business which has developed sophisticated organisational policies and management systems on the issue, has assigned top-level
responsibility for avoiding child-labour, and is engaged with a wider range of stakeholders such as industry bodies, governments, NGOs
and the ILO in initiatives to solve the associated challenges, could locate its response at C. This strategic approach might give this
company the opportunity to profi le itself as a particularly responsible business in the marketplace and with regulators.
THE PRACTITIONER'S HANDBOOK ON STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT | 53