stakeholder = 'a party with any sort of interest whatsoever' (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Victor Steinbok]

Sorry, no. I've considered commenting earlier, but it seemed to be going
swimmingly without my double-penny contribution.

The "stakeholder" terminology has become fairly common in
law-and-economics environment. It is specifically used to differentiate
between stockholders (or shareholders) and stakeholders, but not exactly
along the lines you suggest. For example, in some regimes, management is
prohibited from owning stock in the company, in other regimes (US) it is
encouraged. So in one case you have stockholders, in the other merely
stakeholders. Generally, stakeholders include stockholders plus
directors, employees, management and any other groups directly
associated with the business. But in common use, this would exclude
stockholders--in a way, similar to Congressman and Senator that was
discussed here earlier. [Also note that, in some contexts, the meaning
of "management" gets fuzzy as well--e.g., is the "board of directors"
management? owners who happen to have a direct hand in the running of
the business? I've seen several papers on corporate responsibility where
"directors" and "owners" are not included in "management".] Creditors
are sometimes included even when they have no ownership collateral.
Unions (as an organization, not as representatives of a specific group
of employees), environmental groups, etc., are not direct stakeholders,
although corporate decision-making does affect them indirectly. The
reason for creating new nomenclature is the differences in traditional
management structures in US, Japan, Germany, France, UK and Italy (that
covers almost every model, believe it or not). As I said, what's
encouraged in some regimes is proscribed in others, so it makes for some
very interesting comparisons.

     VS-)

On 2/7/2011 1:10 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> As the use of "stakeholder" has grown, I've assumed it was so that the
> speaker could justify giving credence to the opinions/desires of third
> parties who really shouldn't be listened to.
>
> If you have a stockholder's meeting, you can limit input to those who
> own stock.  Once you include stakeholders, then you gotta listen to the
> Sierra Club, ACLU, labor unions, organic lettuce farmers, etc.

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