To a modern (non-business) audience, the term ‘stakeholder’ probably has little relevance beyond something to do with people who kill vampires. Or so any recent bestseller list would seem to indicate. (And incidentally, if anyone can help me understand this phenomenon – the bestseller part, not the intricacies of vampire execution – I would be much obliged.)

In the business setting, stakeholders are (generally) less murderous. Their stake is not so much a post-like instrument as it is an instrumental post: a role of which an organisation must take heed.

Businessdictionary.com defines this kind of stakeholder as an entity (i.e. person or group) that can affect or be affected by an organisation’s actions, objectives and policies. A very inclusive definition, when you think about it – and therefore progressive – but how do organisations take into account the many potentially competing interests that this implies? For example, I’m seriously affected whenever my football team loses, but I get the distinct impression that my views on team selection are not being taken seriously by club management (and heaven knows I’ve expressed them audibly enough).

The answer is that the devil is in the detail. Businessdictionary points out that ‘all stakeholders are not equal and different stakeholders are entitled to different considerations’. Which sounds vaguely Orwellian, admittedly, but at least it means that some self-righteous ignoramus doesn’t get much say in how a football club runs its business.

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, a business-to-business communications agency that excels when it comes to creating stakeholder communications that engage, inform and inspire.

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