Debate Papers: Stakeholder theory and communication practice

• Published in: Journal of communication management (London, England) Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 95
• Main Authors: Friedman, Andrew L, Miles, Samantha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Emerald Group Publishing Limited 01.09.2004
• Subjects: Business communications; Communication; Social structure; Stakeholders; Stockholders; Strategic management; Studies
• ISSN: 1363-254X; 1478-0852

The dominant strand of stakeholder theory has arisen from ideas as to how to improve strategic management. It is argued that organizations should attend to needs of stakeholders beyond fiduciary duties, in order to reduce risks to their reputation and long-term profitability. This is termed the instrumental approach to stakeholder theory. In addition, some justify attention to wider stakeholders on a normative basis: that organizations have a social responsibility to attend to these groups. Finally, there is a descriptive approach to stakeholder theory that examines the actual approaches of organizations towards their stakeholders. In all these approaches, the tendency has been to concentrate on the organization: its needs, conception of who its stakeholders are and who are important or legitimate, and its communication policies towards them. communication practice is likely to be ineffective if organizations only attend to their own internal view of who their stakeholders are and who are worth attending to, given resource limitations. Communication practice needs to involve more than spinning; it needs to involve spin reception and spinback - that is, to attend to, and to respond to, spin emanating from the stakeholders themselves.