Stakeholder Engagement - Cranfield School of Management ...

Foreword
This guide aims to provide you with an understanding of, and
practical tips for, successful stakeholder engagement.We focus
particularly on engaging communities, NGOs and wider civil
society. It is written by a Doughty Centre Associate Neil Jeffery
who has had extensive experience as an NGO campaigner and
director; and more recently, as an adviser to a number of
Fortune 500 corporations on engaging stakeholders.
Stakeholder engagement is relevant to any type of organisation:
business, public or civil society. It is particularly important in the
context of running an organisation responsibly and is integral to
the concept of Corporate Responsibility. An organisation cannot
be serious about Corporate Responsibility unless it is serious
about stakeholder engagement – and vice versa.
Stakeholder engagement is crucially different to stakeholdermanagement:
stakeholder engagement implies a willingness to
listen; to discuss issues of interest to stakeholders of the
organisation; and, critically, the organisation has to be prepared to
consider changing what it aims to achieve and how it operates,
as a result of stakeholder engagement.
Some critics of Corporate Responsibility misinterpret the idea,
believing that it means that an organisation surrenders to NGOs
or community activists; it should mean no such thing.The
leadership of the organisation still needs to set the direction for
the growth of the organisation, but does so in the knowledge of
stakeholders’ wants and needs (SWANS) as well as the
organisation’s wants and needs (OWANS) – see Understanding
stakeholders (3.2).
Successful management thus becomes the art of optimising longterm
benefits for the organisation based on reconciling
sometimes disparate stakeholders’ wants and needs (investors,
employees, customers, suppliers etc.).
Organisations are constantly interacting with stakeholders, some
of whom will be more or less positively or negatively disposed
to the organisation and will have greater or lesser power over
the organisation – see Segmenting stakeholders (3.2).
Organisations have long recognised that employees at all levels
need negotiating skills; stakeholder engagement significantly
recasts these skills, extending considerably the range of
organisations and individuals that an organisation needs to
negotiate with, and re-emphasising that the most successful
negotiations are those that produce satisfaction for all parties
over the long term – for critical success factors for stakeholder
engagement see Section 4 – Towards Meaningful Engagement.
If Corporate Responsibility is about minimising negative and
maximising positive environmental and social impacts, then
stakeholder engagement is one of the core skills and key
activities which enables this to happen successfully and effectively.
When organisations don’t engage stakeholders successfully, they
can lose out – as the following newspaper headlines
demonstrate.
3
Retailers accused of ignoring Bangladeshi workers' plight:
Workers producing clothes in Bangladesh for some of
the UK's biggest retailers are being forced to work up
to 80 hours a week for as little as 7p an hour, according
to a report from War on Want – Guardian 051208
Thomas Cook promises investors it will outline its
carbon footprint after being "named and shamed" by
investors – Guardian 131008
Norwegian government attacks Rio Tinto selling a £500
million holding in the company after accusing it of
"grossly unethical conduct" – Independent 100908
Gene modified crop spurs investor revolt – Financial
Times 050308
Whistleblowers bring BP down to earth – Financial
Times 080806
Foreword