Stakeholder Mapping and Analysis Paper Example

Stakeholders play a significant role in the operations and growth of an organization through their involvement in intricate decisions, their advice, and perception regarding various approaches the company could adopt CITATION Fre101 \l 1033 (Freeman, 2010). For an organization, knowing and connecting with their stakeholder increases their ability to learn more from the market, which is represented by the stakeholders, and be more direct in addressing concerns raised within the market CITATION Car14 \l 1033 (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014). However, stakeholder management integrates various approaches and concerns that an organization has to consider in determining their involvement and the influence that each category brings as a contributor to the organization. This paper considers the stakeholder salience theory as an approach to evaluate the different ways Google gets to associate with its stakeholders and the different measures that can help increase stakeholder involvement for the benefit of the organization.

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Stakeholder Map for Google

Google has six significant stakeholders that either influence the business or are involved in its daily operations. According to Aaltonen, Jaakko, and Tuomas (2008) mentions that stakeholders are defined as individuals or groups with the capability to be affected or cause an effect on the management and operations of an organization. On the other hand, they are also considered as the individuals or groups with a vested interest in the substantive and procedural phases of an organization as a way to attain the set objective of an organization CITATION Mit97 \l 1033 (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997). In order to identify stakeholders within an organizational setting, three variables are considered as measures to evaluate the influence of the stakeholders. Lu and Abeysekera (2014) mention that power an individual has to influence an organization is critical in determining a stakeholder and their influence on the operations and decisions made.

The other variable to consider is legitimacy, which is the relationship aspect of an individual to an organization CITATION Fer04 \l 1033 (Fernandez Gago, 2004). There are direct and indirect stakeholders with each influencing a given force in the attainment of set goals. The last variable is the urgency, which could be considered as the time factor CITATION Raw06 \l 1033 (Rawlins, 2006). This refers to the timeframe of the influence and involvement of an individual to the development of an organization including the setting of goals and implementing these goals. For Google, there are eleven categories/ groups of stakeholders who include the consumers, the advertisers, governments, employees, investors, media, suppliers, financial institutions, trade associations, activist groups, and communities.

Stakeholder Typology/ Categorization

There are various categories under which stakeholders are classified into depending on their influence and the different variables that influence their actions and involvement in the organization. Dormant stakeholders are stakeholders that have the power to influence changes through coercive, symbolic, or utilitarian approaches but lack urgency and legitimacy in the organization CITATION Cor04 \l 1033 (Cornelissen, 2004). In the groups identified, the dormant stakeholders include the media, the activist groups, and advertisers. The demanding stakeholders include the groups with urgent claims but lack legitimacy and power CITATION Cur09 \l 1033 (Currie, Seaton, & Wesley, 2009). Their claims and influence do not have a legitimate influence on the actions of the organization. For Google, the consumers, the government, and the communities can be considered as demanding stakeholders. The other categories are the dominant stakeholders who are actively involved stakeholders, with power, legitimacy, and urgency CITATION Var11 \l 1033 (Vargo, 2011). Googles dominant stakeholders include the suppliers, the employees, and the investors. The last categories of stakeholders at Google are dependent stakeholders who mostly depend on the influence of others to influence an action. They have power but could have legitimacy and urgency, but do not act on them to be seen as actively involved. Among the stakeholders identified for Google, the dependent stakeholders include the financial institutions and the trade associations.

Stakeholders being neglected

At Google, the dormant stakeholders lack an active role in the decisions being made and the projects implemented. Dormant stakeholders as identified include the media, the activist groups, and advertisers. The media is involved in presenting information collected either from the market or from individual companies; however, since Google has a large customer base and a platform under their control, the media is not actively involved in the decisions and changes within an organization. The activist groups seek to present issues that either is affecting the community or have an influence on the status quo of the community. Most projects and decisions by Google are considered of benefit to the community, which does not set a platform for them to either influence involvement or participation. The last group is the advertisers, who play a very small role in the decisions of Google. Google also advertises some of its products on its platform, which reduces the role assigned to advertisers to help in promoting the organization's operations.

Recommendations

Google has over the years diversified its operations, which reduced the positions and roles assigned to some of the activities within the organization. In order to better involve all the stakeholders, the management has to increase its operations to help increase their products and services within the market.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Aaltonen, K., Jaakko, K., & Tuomas, O. (2008). Stakeholder salience in global projects. International journal of project management, 26(15), 509-516.

Carroll, A., & Buchholtz, A. (2014). Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Ontario: Nelson Education.

Cornelissen, J. (2004). Corporate Communications: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE.

Currie, R. R., Seaton, S., & Wesley, F. (2009). Determining stakeholders for feasibility analysis. Annals of Tourism Research, 36(1), 41-63.

Fernandez Gago, R. &. (2004). Stakeholder salience in corporate environmental strategy. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 4(3), 65-76.

Freeman, E. R. (2010). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Lu, Y., & Abeysekera, I. (2014). Stakeholders' power, corporate characteristics, and social and environmental disclosure: evidence from China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 64, 426-436.

Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of management review, 22(4), 853-886.

Rawlins, B. L. (2006). Prioritizing stakeholders for public relations. Institute for public relations, 1-14.

Vargo, S. L. (2011). Market systems, stakeholders and value propositions: Toward a service-dominant logic-based theory of the market. European Journal of Marketing, 45(1/2), 217-222.