Business Commons^™

Stakeholders, Michael Johnson-Cramer, Robert A. Phillips

Management Faculty Publications

The stakeholder concept derives from a simple premise: organizations and technologies exist in constellations of relationships. Organizations operate in a network of market and nonmarket relationships with other organizations, groups, and individuals. Likewise technologies emerge and exist in a network of suppliers, end users, and others who bear the impact of the technology. Generally with reference to both organizations and technologies, these related parties are termed stakeholders, meaning that they hold a stake in the outcomes of the organization or technology.