If Stakeholders Ruled the World: Stakeholder Relations in the 21st Century
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12236 |
| Date | 01 November 2015 |
| Published date | 01 November 2015 |
| Author | Dietlind Freiberg |
If Stakeholders Ruled the World:
Stakeholder Relations in the 21st Century
Dietlind Freiberg
McDonald’s Germany
Stakeholder dialogue is a business factor
In principle, everybody is a stakeholder, today more than
ever before. We live in a globalized world in which
actions can have a complex impact. So in theory every-
body has a stake in everything. Even if we are not aware
of this.
Active and passive stakeholders
But how does the transition to active ‘stakeholdership’
take place? This transition is characterized by an individ-
ual’s decision to become an active part of an idea. An
intrinsic motivation to adapt one’s behavior according to
convictions and to look for others that share the same
idea(s) in order to form a group are characteristic ele-
ments as well. The voice of such groups is important for
a vivid civil society.
This is the first thing companies should be aware of
when they have made the decision to manage their
stakeholder dialogues actively and consistently: the stake-
holders from civil society that they deal with –they may
be organized as an NGO –have already undergone this
individual transition process from a passive attitude to
active engagement. And their agendas follow overarching
ideas –in most cases. So companies will find themselves
in a dialogue that is rather about ideas than matter.
Identification and prioritization
The relationship with external stakeholders can be
regarded as a business factor weighing in as much as
the continuous optimization of a company’s own pro-
cesses. For successful stakeholder management, there is
no way organizations can get around identifying who
their stakeholders are in the first place. And there is no
way they can get around a strategic prioritization after. A
third success factor is to be aware of the different ‘stake-
holder categories’and to orient expectations and
dialogue formats against these categories.
To integrate stakeholder dialogues into a holistic sus-
tainability management approach companies will have to
deal with this multitude of stakeholder groups. Corpo-
rate communication around the Triple Bottom Line
(TBL) –which combines the management of economical,
environmental and social responsibility aspects –is an
additional trigger for stakeholder dialogue.
Some stakeholders want to influence, some want to
regulate and some want to evaluate a company’s actions
(Table 1). In between are organizations that intend to
give support to a company (or rather a sector) by pro-
tecting and voicing its interests. The influencers, regula-
tors and evaluators no doubt have an impact on the
customers.
The most important sustainability topics are
our food, our sourcing and our staff
McDonald’s Germany utilizes dialog groups, surveys,
monitoring tools and analysis reports to keep up to date
with the views, expectations and decisions of its stake-
holders. We also consider the findings from bilateral dis-
cussions and the insights gained at industry and
specialist events and conferences.
The aim is to find out what the different stakeholders
expect of McDonald’s Germany and how they rate the
company’s performance and feed these findings into
strategic management decision making. Our stakeholders
–diners, employees, franchisees and suppliers –make a
direct contribution to the success of our company every
single day. But we are also interested in the views of the
general public, NGOs, the media, unions, scientific institu-
tions, policy makers, government agencies, industry asso-
ciations and market players in the ‘to-go’foodservice
sector.
From the point of view of our stakeholders –above all
our diners –the most important sustainability topics for
McDonald’s Germany are our food, our sourcing and our
staff.
Customer focus
Customers are the most important external stakeholder
group, because they make the buying decision. This is
©2015 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2015) 6:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12236
Global Policy Volume 6 . Issue 4 . November 2015
492
Practitioners’ Special Section
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