Stakeholders: Large Firms

A main component of any company are stakeholders. A stakeholder is a person, group, or organization that has an involvement or interest in a company. Stakeholders can affect a company’s actions as well as be affected by them. There are several key stakeholders in Comcast who play a large role in how the company is ran. These include managers and employees, government agencies and unions, and finally the shareholders.

The stakeholder theory made popular by Ed Freeman (1984) does seem to represent a major advance over the classical view (Freeman, 1984). It might seem inappropriate to refer to the stakeholder position as neoclassical. Bowie (1991: 56-66) has defined stakeholders as a group whose existence was necessary for the survival of the firm--stockholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the local community, and managers themselves.

Stakeholders have a significant influence on the aims of an organisation. They are the people who are affected by or interested in the business. In some organisations the shareholders are stakeholders, and at times have some of the decision power. In trade organisations, customers are also considered stakeholders; therefore their needs are part of the organisation’s overall objectives.

Stakeholders are individuals or groups that partake, or assert, possession, privileges, or benefits in a, organization and its accomplishments, previously currently, and in the upcoming (Barrett, 2001). These requested privileges or benefits are the result of communications with, or activities reserved by the organization, and they must be lawful or ethical, separate or combined Stakeholders with comparable benefits, entitlements, or privileges can be categorized as fitting into the similar collection: personnel, investors, and clients (Barrett, 2001). The better the impact these groups have on client’s lives and the extra community assets with which they are assigned, and it becomes vital that they are responsible (Barrett, 2001).

Nowadays, after the passing of several bills constraining the actions of corporations, acting in a similar manner would pose several legal and ethical issues. This is why, Freeman argues, this ancient idea of managerial capitalism is no longer effective.

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the definition and what a stakeholder is and what it does. I will also explain the two groups of the stakeholders and put the stakeholders in the group where they belong. I will explain what the stakeholders responsibilities are, what their ethical responsibilities to the company. Will explain what would be the appropriate response to the situation in the company. And finally explain what Joe should propose to the management team and how Joe should support his proposal.

The stakeholders are the shareholders, managers, and employees. The current situation has caused a dilemma that affects all stakeholders equally. When the business is at risk, everyone involved should be concerned about the future of the organization. However, the responsibility falls to the senior leaders of the organization to solve the current issues. However, holding 80% of the company’s stocks is concerned not only about the organizations current issues but also with the value of his investment, as he gets closer to retirement. This creates an ethical dilemma due to his personal finances and retirement being directly affected by the company’s performance. In addition, the CEO believes that the status of the organization is not as bad as some of the senior leadership team would say. The shareholders interest is purely profit. The impact of how Huffman Trucking runs the business and implements change has a direct reflection on the company’s image.

The second stakeholders are investors and Riordan’s shareholders. Investors assume that leadership team will have actions for the best interest of all involved parties and maintain a successful running company. The main interest for stakeholders is a fair return on their investment. Therefore, Riordan's leadership team must put down plans to implement growth strategies and see a Return On Investment (ROI). The impact of slow and poor performance may direct investors to withdraw

In general ,the stakeholder approach may be more conducive to balancing a wide variety of corporate interests and thereby discouraging impropriety.Executives and boards should take the perceptions of both shareholders and stakeholders into account when formulating strategy and enunciate their stance in all organizational communications. Only within that kind of clearly delineated context, can managers be expected to make appropriate decisions. Indeed, some of the most successful businesses are those which have embraced stakeholder values for example Bodyshop. However, we see that generally, shareholder value

Stakeholders can be divided into internal and external claimants. Internal claimants include shareholders and employees including the managers of the firm. External claimants typically comprise customers, suppliers, bankers, competitors, governments, trade unions, alliance partners, communities and the general public. Looking further into external stakeholders one could, also include the environment.

This paper will have a detailed discussion on the shareholder theory of Milton Friedman and the stakeholder theory of Edward Freeman. Friedman argued that “neo-classical economic theory suggests that the purpose of the organisations is to make profits in their accountability to themselves and their shareholders and that only by doing so can business contribute to wealth for itself and society at large”. On the other hand, the theory of stakeholder suggests that the managers of an organisation do not only have the duty towards the firm’s shareholders; rather towards the individuals and constituencies who contribute to the company’s wealth, capacity and activities. These individuals or constituencies can be the shareholders, employees,

My company is FedEx. The company's stated mission, as per its website (2013) is that it "will produce superior financial returns for shareowners by providing high value-added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating companies." This mission statement highlights the following stakeholders: the shareholders and the customers. A further stakeholder not mentioned but critical to FedEx is the company's employees. For example, an often-cited maxim at FedEx is People-Service-Profit, highlighting that it is the people who deliver the value-added for the customers, and that this is how FedEx delivers profits. The company also mentions its partners as key stakeholders, and there will be the usual tangential stakeholders like governments, competitors, potential customers, and suppliers. Most of these are external stakeholders the internal ones are the employees and the shareholders. All managers, even senior managers, are employees and most are shareholders as well.

Stakeholders are people or groups with interest in an organization that can affect or be affected by the organization itself, its objectives, or its policies (BusinessDictionary, 2015). Each stakeholder brings their own perspective to the table based on their relationship with the organization (e.g. internal or external role), their level of experience, and their area of expertise about the subject matter they are involved with. At a high level, the list of stakeholders for any organization could include people or groups such as: customers, employees, government agencies, suppliers, unions, community resources, shareholders, and business owners. For the purpose of this assignment, I will discuss and review stakeholders relative to the

In light of the recent scandals that rose around big multinationals such as Enron and WorldCom, it has become evident that reform in the traditional corporate operations and objectives was to be encompassed in the organisations corporate strategies. Indeed throughout the years, companies main objectives were defined primarily as being economic objectives, Multinationals developed with sight of profit maximisations regardless to the other incentives, Friedman considered that to be the foundation for a well-managed company, it was further considered that the financing of any other sort of social corporate activities rather unnecessary. The expenses were regarded as expenditures for the owners and investors; this was a time where shareholders rights were regarded as conflicting with other constituents namely the employees, creditors, customers or the community in general. However this interpretation is seen as rather inadequate due to the nature of the amalgamated relation between both constituents. Stakeholders in modern corporate doctrine are considered as a core apparatus for the well functioning of a business. It is however often argued that the only way for a corporation to achieve better results and maximise its profits is to include other people in the process, individuals or organisations with direct or indirect interest in the well performance of the company, that is the reason why modern regulations and codes include a number of stakeholders other than the

A company’s stakeholders are all those who are influenced by and can influence a company’s decisions and action, both locally and globally. Business stakeholders include(but are not limited to) employees, suppliers, customer, community organizations, subsidiaries and affiliates, joint venture partners, local neighborhoods, investors, shareholders(or a sole owner in case it is sole