Question:
Discuss about the Stakeholder Engagement in Adaptation Interventions.
Stakeholders are an important part of any business organisation. Each company works towards maximizing the interests of the stakeholders. Stakeholders can be considered as key element of any corporate entity. Stakeholder can be understood as any person, group, community that has interest or concern in the organization. Stakeholders can be affected or affect the organizations objectives, actions & policies. Stakeholders can be understood as creditors, directors, shareholders, government agencies, owners, suppliers, agencies, community etc., from which business draws its resources. Stakeholders have different stakes or interests in the company and hence not all of them are equal ( Vallaster & Wallpach, 2013)
In this report, we will understand the scope of different stakeholders, their vested interests in the company and how to effectively engage the stakeholders. Not all stakeholders are active and participate in business communication. Some are dormant by nature and hence it becomes really difficult for organisation to grow when all the stakeholders are not on the same page. Engagement is extremely essential for any business’s growth and thus requires active participation of stakeholders. Also, some of the concern in engagement of stakeholders is voicing their opinion; some of the stakeholders are dominated by others, which result in unequal voicing on an issue or a problem. These stakeholders thus forms a part of the minority group, whose concern are not paid enough heads to, this is extremely hurtful for any company’s interests. To engage these kinds of stakeholders, different ideas have to be thought of; thinking out of the box will only help them to give their voices a platform and attention too. Hence, it can be established that a genuine representative engagement is a must and should for any company’s goals and objectives and also to further lead the company to the path of success. Any successful company in the present world relies heavily on the stakeholder’s participation and engagement (Andriof, Waddock, Husted & Rahman, 2017). In the report further we will see how we can increase the genuine participation of stakeholders in the organisation and what measures could be taken to increase the engagement.
Stakeholder engagement: It can be understood as the process through which a company interacts with its stakeholders in order to achieve a desired outcome or objective, this helps them to achieve a desired outcome with increased accountability. In earlier days , stakeholder engagement used to be done only in order to mitigate the risks, but now, after understanding the importance of it, stakeholder engagement have become proactive as it helps to enhance sustainability and profitability of the organisation (RInaldi,Unerman & Tilt, 2014). There are numerous opportunities to interact with the stakeholders, organisation should carefully observe and then nurture the relationships it wants to build with the stakeholders.
It is really essential to build a great relationship with the stakeholders and engaging with them is the only way to derive that.
Achieving genuine representation of stakeholders is a concern for the managers, but there are a couple of methods by which engagement of the stakeholders can be ensured
|
Engagement type |
Description |
|
Communicate/Disclose |
It can be understood as one way communication from the company to stakeholders, the information can be about new practices, developments that may impact them. This goes down in building a relationship with the stakeholders and also demonstrates transparency in the system. Examples of this type of communication can be bulletins, speeches, presentations, newsletters , open houses, town hall meetings etc. |
|
Consult |
Company may ask for stakeholders advise on decision making, this would make the stakeholders feel empowered and also a feeling of importance sets in them. When the company is valuing the feedback given by stakeholders, it really helps in getting them engaged. Examples can be surveys, assessments, workshops, feedback etc. |
|
Participate |
It can be seen as a two way communication between the stakeholder and the company in matter of decision making. The decisions are thus taken by individual or by voting system. Examples can be leadership summit, focus groups, interviews, research and analysis. |
|
Partner/Negotiate |
This can be seen as collaboration between the parties for a mutual interest. The company and stakeholders develop synergies and hence also reduce the risks by covering all the thinking aspects to a problem. Examples can be joint committee, joint ventures, partnerships, alliances. |
|
Empower |
Stakeholders are given special powers to influence company’s governance and also get involved in important decision making. Examples of this type of engagement can be, stakeholders representation on the board, warranty etc. |
It is though established that public forums like open house meetings, town halls can get a bigger representation of stakeholders and goes a long way to ensure their engagements. I am totally in sync with the ideology that goes behind organising public meetings to get stakeholders representation.
There is no denial that there are certain stakeholders who are more active than the other , but by using the different engagement strategies as mentioned above can help the stakeholders to engage more with the company. There are certain stakeholders who are more vocal and articulate about their opinions and raising their voice over others, the same can be contributed to their personality traits of being vocal. This is a cause of concern for the company as it disallows or demotivates other stakeholders who are less confident and are not vocal, they thus form a part of the minority group. Such stakeholders thus end up being quiet or raising their voice or opinion, and hence leads to a lesser participation in comparison to other stakeholders. This can lead to some serious damage to the company as some views opinion might be worthy of being listened to, but gets lost due to such strong stakeholders. Company should thus ensure that all the stakeholders should participate. This can be ensured by individual meeting with the stakeholders, where they can open up to the engagers and give their view point. Other techniques which will help the process can be feedback, mail exchange, motivation to the stakeholders, empowering them , explain them the importance of their contribution to the company’s growth, making them understand organisation values their feedback and the same can only be achieved if they overcome their fear and indulge in active participation in any form possible (Conley & Wright, 2015)
Engaging with stakeholders at an early stage and more often: Proactive, transparent communication with the stakeholders can built trust and also makes them realize their importance to the organisation. It also shows that the company is committed to engagement with its stakeholders. Hence, even if there is no pressing need to engage with the stakeholders, keeping them in loop on even normal day to day matter would make them feel important thus ensuring their better participation (Krogman, 2017) Keep the language easy for the stakeholders: The communication which is put out to the stakeholders should be presented in such a manner which is really easy to understand, succinct and easy to absorb. Difficult language makes it really confusing at ties for the stakeholders which might make them shy to engage with the content. Being thoughtful and sincere: It is a known t=fact that the stakeholders are backbone of any company, hence listening to them carefully and implementing the changes they have advised will be a big step towards further engagement. Listening to stakeholders will make them really comfortable and they would come out in the open and give their views more often and thus increasing their engagement with the company (Jami & Walsh, 2014) Recognize challenges: Engagement requires a lot of time and resources and it has to be dealt with utmost importance. It also raises the stakeholders expectation when they are being engaged with the company, it can also lead to disappointment when their views are not considered, hence they have to be made to understand if and when their views and feedback are not considered and the rationale behind the same(Wardle, 2015) Engagement has to be tailored according to the context: Different stakeholders require different strategies of engagement; it also depends on the company size, project type, concern type and many other factors. Hence it is really important to tailor the content for different stakeholders according to the relevancy of the context (Sherman & Ford, 2014)
There can also be certain issues or hindrances on the path of stakeholder’s engagement, which might also hold them back form engaging, some of the rampant issues which are regional can be:
Social issues: Some of the stakeholders have social issues like health, job creation, studies, safety etc., and these issues matter more to the stakeholders in comparison to other issues like environment, hence they focus more on the social issues and less on the environmental issues this can be a hindrance on the path of engagement (Mok, Shen & Yang, 2015)
Different view of opinion: The stakeholders can be divided in two groups, urban and rural stakeholders. For examples urban stakeholders will focus more on the environmental impact because of the mining and excavation industries, whereas rural stakeholders will focus more on the employment opportunities. It thus kinds of creates a misbalance and can also be a cause of less engagement (Esmail, Moore & Rein, 2015)
Conclusion:
It can be concluded by saying that the relationship building with the stakeholders takes a good amount of time and resources. The relationship building with the stakeholders is important. Engaging with them is a key aspect of any business, as these stakeholders have a great experience and learning of their field which is certainly useful for the companies. Thus such techniques should be adopted which helps to create a great ecosystem for the engagement. The language of communicating with the stakeholders have to be thought of, the feedback given have to be understood carefully before implementing any changes, at the same time if a view is not considered the rationale behind the same has to be made to understand to the stakeholders. Empowering the stakeholders will go down as the key strategy to increase the engagement with the company. Processes like open house meeting, town halls, gives a good opportunity of engagement with the stakeholders and also allows a great participation of every stakeholder (Henisz , Dorobantu & Nartey, 2014).
References:
Vallaster, C. and von Wallpach, S 2013, An online discursive inquiry into the social dynamics of multi-stakeholder brand meaning co-creation, Journal of Business Research, 66(9), pp.1505-1515.
Andriof, J., Waddock, S, Husted, B. and Rahman, S.S 2017, Unfolding stakeholder thinking: theory, responsibility and engagement, Routledge.
Rinaldi, L., Unerman, J. and Tilt, C 2014, The role of stakeholder engagement and dialogue within the sustainability accounting and reporting process, Sustainability accounting and accountability, pp.86-107.
Dawkins, C.E 2014, The principle of good faith: Toward substantive stakeholder engagement, Journal of Business Ethics, 121(2), pp.283-295.
Gao, S.S. and Zhang, J.J 2006, Stakeholder engagement, social auditing and corporate sustainability, Business process management journal, 12(6), pp.722-740.
O’Riordan, L. and Fairbrass, J 2014, Managing CSR stakeholder engagement: A new conceptual framework, Journal of Business Ethics, 125(1), pp.121-145.
Carman, K.L. and Workman, T.A 2017, Engaging patients and consumers in research evidence: applying the conceptual model of patient and family engagement, Patient education and counseling, 100(1), pp.25-29.
Krogman, N 2017, Engaging local stakeholders, McGraw.
Conley, H. and Wright, T 2015, Making reflexive legislation work: stakeholder engagement and public procurement in the Public Sector Equality Duty, Equality and Diversity Forum and EDF Research Network.
Wardle, M 2015, Evidence Is Not Enough: The Challenges of Engaging Organisational Stakeholders with Different Perspectives, In Derailed Organizational Interventions for Stress and Well-Being (pp. 93-99). Springer Netherlands.
Esmail, L., Moore, E. and Rein, A 2015, Evaluating patient and stakeholder engagement in research: moving from theory to practice, Journal of comparative effectiveness research, 4(2), pp.133-145.
Mok, K.Y., Shen, G.Q. and Yang, J 2015, Stakeholder management studies in mega construction projects: A review and future directions, International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), pp.446-457.
Sherman, M.H. and Ford, J 2014, Stakeholder engagement in adaptation interventions: an evaluation of projects in developing nations, Climate Policy, 14(3), pp.417-441.
Jami, A.A. and Walsh, P.R 2014, The role of public participation in identifying stakeholder synergies in wind power project development: The case study of Ontario, Canada. Renewable Energy, 68, pp.194-202.
Henisz, W.J., Dorobantu, S. and Nartey, L.J 2014, Spinning gold: The financial returns to stakeholder engagement, Strategic Management Journal, 35(12), pp.1727-1748.
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