Business and society

Interactive

- Companies actively engage stakeholders in an ongoing relationship of mutual respect, openness, and trust

Inactive

- Companies ignore stakeholder concerns

Proactive

- Companies try to anticipate stakeholder concerns

Reactive

- companies act only when forced to do so, and then in a defensive manner

Environmental analysis

A method managers use to gather information about external issues and trends, so they can develop an organizational strategy that minimizes threats and takes advantage of new opportunities

Stakeholder expectations

A mixture of people's opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about what constitutes reasonable business behavior

In the Issue Management Process Identify Issue is

Anticipating emerging concerns, or "horizon" issues

Public issue

Any issue that is of mutual concern to an organization and one or more of its stakeholders

Performance-Expectations Gap

Discrepancy between what stakeholders expect and what an organization is actually doing

In the Issue Management Process Generate Options is

Evaluating action options, involves complex judgments that take into account "non-quantifiable" factors like the company's reputation

In the Issue Management Process Analyze Issue is

Evaluating the issue; coming to an understanding of how it will evolve and how it will affect the organization

The Issue Management Process

Identify Issue Analyze Issue Generate Options Take Action Evaluate Results

Over time, the nature of business's relationship with its stakeholders often evolve through a series of stages

Inactive Reactive Proactive Interactive

In the Issue Management Process Evaluate Results

Must assess results of the program and make adjustments as needed

In the Issue Management Process Take Action

Once option is chosen, must design and implement it

a relationship

Stakeholder engagement is, at its core,

Environmental intelligence

The acquisition of information gained from analyzing the multiple environments affecting organizations

to constitute engagement

The participation of a business organization and at least one stakeholder organization is necessary, by definition,

Competitive Intelligence

The systematic and continuous process of gathering, analyzing, and managing external information about the organization's competitors that can affect the organization's plans, decisions and operations