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In this chapter, we update stakeholder salience research using the new lens of stakeholder work: the purposive processes of organization aimed at being aware of, identifying, understanding, prioritizing, and engaging stakeholders. Specifically, we focus on stakeholder prioritization work — primarily as represented by the stakeholder salience model — and discuss contributions, shortcomings, and possibilities for this literature. We suggest that future research focus on stakeholder inclusivity, the complexity of prioritization work within intra-corporate markets, the integration of stakeholder prioritization with other forms of stakeholder work, and the development of managerial tools for multiobjective decision making within the strategic management context.

The purpose of the study is to investigate differences between the perceptions of the Mayors and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of local government authorities (LGAs) with regards to the attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency of different identified stakeholder groups regarding their claims and needs concerning infrastructure assets. Stakeholder groups are categorised into those at the public level and those at higher-tier government level.

A survey of 420 LGAs throughout Australia was undertaken using an instrument developed from the constructs in Mitchell et al.’s (1997) theory of stakeholder identification and salience.

The results first reveal that there are more similarities than differences between the perceptions of the Mayors and CEOs with regard to stakeholder attributes of different stakeholder groups. Second, both Mayors and CEOs view stakeholders in infrastructure decision-making as largely “expectant dependant”. However, there is evidence that some biased priority may be accorded to the “public stakeholder” category over “higher-tier government” category because the CEO’s perception of the power of “public” stakeholders, together with the Mayor’s managerial values, is significantly positively related to their perceptions of the salience of these “public” stakeholders, but not “higher-tier government” stakeholders. However the results of the analysis change in the combined sample of the Mayor and CEO, making both categories of stakeholders as “definitive” in infrastructure decision-making.

The results of this study are subject to the usual limitation of mail surveys, including biases that can arise in respondents’ rating based on their perceptions. The findings have implications for the process of infrastructure decision-making in local governments.

This paper contributes to the literature, providing evidence on how Mayors and CEOs of local governments prioritise the needs, interests and claims of different stakeholders with respect to infrastructure assets.

Although Mitchell et al. (1997) recognize salience attributes as variables, the salience framework based on a dichotomous representation of salience attributes does not explain why, in some instances, a latent stakeholder is assigned more salience than a definitive stakeholder. This paper explains this riddle by bringing the debate to the organizational population level and suggests a new perspective for understanding the process of stakeholder identification and prioritization.

The authors compare two organizational populations, i.e. “for-profit and not-for-profit” which are distinguishable from one another based on the dominant institutional logic that each endorses. The authors, therefore, mobilize the institutional theory and bring the debate of the stakeholder salience to the organizational population level.

The authors propose that members of an organizational population endorsing similar institutional logic develop salience attributes of similar potential values, which are radically different from those of the members of other organizational populations; these potential values act as precursors that determine the perceived values of salience attributes for a manager; and dominant and recessive salience attributes work, at the organizational population level, to determine stakeholder prioritization.

The original model of Mitchell et al. (1997) has been cited more than 9,000 times, but the process of stakeholder evaluation remains a black box (Bundy et al., 2013; Tashman and Raelin, 2013). This paper contributes to the debate and suggests a change in the level of analysis (to the organizational population) and a focus on the institutional logic perspective.

Stakeholder thinking has contributed considerably to the organizational literature by demonstrating the significance of the environment in managing organizations. Stakeholders affect and are affected by organizations’ daily operations and decisions. They have varied and often conflicting interests, making it necessary for managers and organizations to know who they are as well as their attributes. Consequently, Mitchell et al. (1997) developed the stakeholder salience theory to help managers and organizations identify the power of certain stakeholders and their salience to the organization. With a few exceptions, the mainstream stakeholder salience theory is in many ways still largely static, short-term oriented, and firm-centered. The aim of this paper is to revisit certain conformist assumptions concerning the role of marginalized stakeholders, or “dormant” stakeholders, in stakeholder thinking. Overall, this chapter is a call to a new conceptualization of stakeholders that reintroduces stakeholder dynamics at the core of stakeholder thinking to overcome its restrictive shortcomings. We argue that managing stakeholder relationships is not simply meeting stakeholder demands but also involves taking into account the long-term dynamics of stakeholder interactions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the degree of stakeholder salience and the degree of emphasis placed on accountability dimensions for infrastructure assets (IFAs) as perceived by mayors and chief executive officers (CEOs) of local government authorities (LGAs). Comparisons are drawn between the salience accorded to two broad stakeholder groups at the public level and at the government level.

Perceptions of mayors and CEOs are examined through a mail questionnaire survey administered among LGAs in Australia.

Overall accountability for IFAs by the LGAs is influenced by the salience accorded to the demands and needs of public stakeholders (PSs) but not the salience accorded to government stakeholders (GS). It is evident that public and managerial accountabilities are impacted by PS salience, whereas political accountability is impacted by the salience of GS. Thus, it emphasises that the establishment and implementation of policies, processes and systems that render transparency and responsiveness to the public, as well as service quality and the disclosure of performance measures, are positively affected by the salience accorded to PS groups.

The results of the study may be affected by the inherent weaknesses associated with mail surveys.

Accountability of LGAs for IFAs to GS needs enhancement, specifically stronger policy incentives.

This paper contributes to the literature, providing evidence on how mayors and CEOs of LGAs perceive the salience of different stakeholders of IFAs and its impact on the perceived accountability.

For change initiatives to succeed, change managers are required to address recipients’ needs. Although strategies to deal with change recipients and their resistance are widely explored, there is a dearth of studies that consider the different salience of change recipients. This paper aims to propose a framework on the effects of participation and coercion as strategies to deal with change recipients and their impact on change derailment.

Conceptual based upon that change recipients are classified into three levels according to their salience in relation to change. Based upon the recipients’ power and legitimacy in relation to change, stakeholder salience theory constitutes a theoretical provision used in this research to categorize the salience of change recipients.

The framework integrates change recipients’ salience levels (i.e. definitive, expectant and latent) and the effects of participation and coercion strategies on change derailment in times of organizational re-creation. The paper develops six hypotheses, which yield insights that advance the understanding of dealing with change recipients in the context of organizational re-creation.

The paper is conceptual and not yet tested empirically. To empirically test the framework, research adopting survey methodology to gather data from organizations that experience a re-creation change as defined in this paper. The unit of analysis for future research is described in this paper and it is how organizational re-creation is defined in this paper.

Stakeholder salience theory is used to develop a framework that combines three classes of change recipients’ salience, as well as the effects of two strategies to deal with them and their resistance (i.e. lack of involvement and coercion) to examine their influence on change derailment. The potential contribution will expand the current literature discussed in this paper about dealing with change recipients’ resistance to change.

Previous studies have proposed that correctly managing stakeholders with certain attributes can benefit project management; however, robust theoretical elaborations and empirical investigations of this topic have been lacking. The purpose of this study is to empirically test the effects of two stakeholder attributes – contractor-perceived contractor salience and contractor project position – on the criticality of five typical contractor-related risks: risk of (1) injuries and accidents, (2) quality defects, (3) work delays, (4) cost overruns and (5) breaches of contract.

Questionnaire data were collected from 118 Chinese contractor managers. Regression models were run in Mplus 7.11 to test the hypotheses.

The data show that higher contractor-perceived contractor salience and a more supportive contractor project position were both related to lower criticality of contractor-related risks, including risk of (1) injuries and accidents, (2) quality defects, (3) work delays, (4) cost overruns and (5) breaches of contract. Contractor salience also mediated the negative relationship between a supportive contractor project position and the criticality of contractor-related risks.

The authors’ research design is cross-sectional and thus cannot establish causation in the relationships among the studied variables. The single item measure of contractor project position was used for the first time in the present study; thus, its reliability and validity still await more empirical examinations.

The findings advance the understanding of the value of stakeholder management in projects by specifying that prioritizing stakeholders' claims and securing their support for the project reduce the criticality of stakeholder-related risks. By providing empirical evidence from the construction context, the findings also add to knowledge on the instrumental power of stakeholder management in enhancing project risk management performance.

To study relationships between focal organisations and their stakeholders in a generic way, beyond the agency/transaction cost approach usually used in business research. The domain was political parties and their stakeholders.

Study participants were officials and activists in five major Irish political parties. They were asked to nominate their most important stakeholders, to rate these stakeholders on salience as represented by power, legitimacy and urgency and to describe extent and intensity of their party engagement with these stakeholders.

Stakeholders considered more important to the organisation receive higher levels of engagement from the parties than those stakeholders thought to be less critical. The results suggest that high levels of stakeholder engagement can yield beneficial electoral results for political parties. The importance of looking after “internal stakeholders” is also supported. The three attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency do not seem to describe completely the salience of stakeholders to all organisations in a generic sense. The adequacy of the three attributes is most supported in mainstream organisations with a focused pragmatic orientation toward “winning”. However, it appears that more ideologically oriented organisations may assign higher salience to stakeholders who fit their ideology, as opposed to those who possess power, legitimacy and urgency.

The ideological dimension of stakeholder salience which emerged in this study is worthy of further exploration, especially in its implications for actual stakeholder engagement and behaviour with respect to corporate social responsibility.

In the business arena – the study suggests that high levels of stakeholder engagement can yield beneficial results. It also demonstrates the importance of looking after internal stakeholders.

Discovery of dynamics between a focal organisation and its stakeholders in a more generic way than offered in traditional business research.

This research brings together two streams of thought applied to decision-making: lean thinking and stakeholder theory. Both have been identified as ways to improve organizational value. Previous studies disagree regarding whether they can work together. This study investigates if managers balance stakeholders and lean thinking in decision-making.

This research investigates if both lean thinking and stakeholder salience share common literature by using data mining. It surveys organizations that perceive themselves as lean and have multiple diverse stakeholders to determine whether waste and salience are considered when making decisions. An ANOVA is done to see if organization type, management level, organization size, geographic location, or lean maturity has an effect on the priority of stakeholder salience or lean thinking's waste variants when making decisions.

Findings of this research are: 1) stakeholders salience criteria are considered more often than lean thinking's waste variants in decision-making by managers as a whole and in particular by middle-level managers and senior managers. However, lean thinking's waste variants are considered as often as stakeholder salience criteria by first-line managers. 2) The ranking of stakeholder salience in making decisions is not affected by organization type, respondent position, organization size, perceived lean experience, or geographic location. The organization type, organization size, lean experience, and location do not affect the ranking of lean thinking variants either. But the ranking of lean thinking's waste variants is significantly different for first-line, middle-level, and senior managers. Middle-level managers rank lean thinking higher than that of either first-line or senior-level. Because of this, middle managers have a more balanced approach in using lean thinking and stakeholder salience than other managers. 3) Stakeholder salience criteria have a significantly higher ranking than lean thinking variants in making decisions for all organization types: manufacturing and nonmanufacturing.

This research demonstrates a significant disconnect exists between lean thinking and demands of stakeholders that impacts the value of an organization, and only middle-level managers bring balance and awareness of both streams of thought. An empirical instrument has been developed to balance the stakeholder salience criteria with the lean thinking variants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between stakeholder culture, stakeholder salience and firm response to stakeholder demands, based on the stakeholder culture framework.

The study was conducted in a field setting involving 292 mid-level managers who completed measures of stakeholder culture and stakeholder engagement activities (SEAs) in their organizations.

Results show that managers in organizations with different stakeholder cultures differentially ascribe and weigh the three attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency when determining stakeholder salience. In addition, stakeholder culture is also associated with how managers respond to stakeholder issues in terms of SEAs.

Findings of the study justify the need to extend the stakeholder salience theory beyond the values of senior managers to include organization-level factors. This study is largely exploratory and the relationships that have been observed are associational in character.

Results show that both ascription of stakeholder salience and the nature of SEAs are associated with stakeholder culture prevalent in an organization. This implies that managers may face constraints in managing stakeholder relationships, regardless of their personal values and beliefs, and may have to make deliberate efforts to modify the culture.

Despite the fact that researchers have been urged to examine how organization-level phenomena guide managerial thinking and decision making with respect to stakeholder relationships, empirical research on the topic is lacking. This study contributes to the emerging research on firm-level perspective on stakeholder management.