Social Performance of a Company - Essay Example

? Social Performance Social Performance Q1) Describe your company and analyze the various primary and secondary stakeholder groups, their roles, and relationships. Wisetech is a medium-sized public corporation that deals with electronic material like computers, copiers, tax registers, and machines. A stakeholder who gets affected directly by the company’s performance is known as primary stakeholders (Keep, 2003). Numerous parties are considered Wisetech primary stakeholders. They include customers, contractors, and creditors. These primary stakeholders are those who have interests in the company’s goals and intentions. The secondary stakeholders are those individuals who have indirect interest with the interests of the company, and they include inhabitants who live close to the company, and would therefore be affected if the organization decides to pollute their local rivers or staff who count on the company employing indigenous workers. These secondary stakeholders can also be primary stakeholders. For example, the pollution directed to the environment might affect those who live next to the company. The company employs others and they stock the company making them have direct interest with the company’s financial well-being (Keep, 2003). These stakeholders at times became so vocal, like when the staff members go against laying off workers and outsourcing other financial goals. Primary stakeholders of this company are at times known as market stakeholders. All these stakeholders are important for this organization as the primary stakeholders have an official, or prescribed relationship with the company (Keep, 2003). The secondary stakeholders have a continuous or an enduring interest in the company, but no direct financial contact. Even though the primary stakeholders develop a direct connection with the company, situations would imply that they should not continually receive the highest impact by an administrator controlling which specific strategic preference to choose (Keep, 2003). Stakeholders can influence an organization by expecting the company to stratify their needs. In addition to this, stakeholders offer the company with resources, and in turn expect a suitable profit on their savings. Workforces provide manual labor, skills and in exchange anticipate getting a corresponding income and trade satisfaction (Keep, 2003). Clients want value for capital invested and traders seek responsible buyers. Shareholders as managers should always work towards the interest of the company owners (Keep, 2003). Q2) Recommend ways the stakeholders can influence the destiny of your business. The company should also work in a manner that it treats all the stakeholders fairly. This is because the company appreciates varying views. The company should note that it cannot function without the stakeholders taking part in the decision making process. Therefore, it is important to involve the stakeholders in the process of making decision especially concerning matters to do with investments (Keep, 2003). The major influence of stakeholders will reflect on how they affect the planning of activities in the company, how they lead to uncertainty in the company plans, and the company needs depend on the stakeholders’ decisions. It is important to note that senior management of the company has a lot of influence than the environmental activists (Keep, 2003). The organization can make an effort to develop racial coherence to alter the social environment for workers of both the ethnic or social minority, as well as the majority within the company to ensure that they all work in harmony towards achieving their company goals. This company should always aim at involving all members in the process of decision making so that everyone involved feels part of the organization (Keep, 2003). The organization should always provide accommodating work conditions, relief programs for workers, leave for parents, and other attempts that offer workers leisure time to reduce stress and enhance productivity within the company. Other benefits that the organization should aim at are things like provision of free medical services for the workers (Lea, 2004). Q3) Create a plan on how you would encourage stakeholders to form a coalition to help you achieve your goals. Include a discussion of the specific assistance you think the coalition could provide A coalition is a provisional association or joining of groups to attain a common goal or to be involved in cooperative activity (Lea, 2004). The process of developing coalitions with other members of an organization with similar values, interests, and goals allows stakeholders to work together using their resources, and work towards achieving the organizational goals (Lea, 2004). This is because combined efforts lead to a powerful contribution in the business. In order to build a coalition the managers should ensure that their business goals are compatible. They should also ensure that working as a group improves both stakeholders’ abilities to attain their objectives, and that the advantages of coming together will be more than the expenses. The managers can make use of incentives to motivate stakeholders to work together or penalties can be made, making the charges of not uniting even better (Lea, 2004). Finally, coalition planners might use preference as a way of societal influence. For instance, in decision making process, stakeholders usually want to stay consistent with previous commitments. This means that stakeholders can make their partners to work with them in recent activities (Lea, 2004). Q4 Anticipate any challenges in encouraging stakeholders to form a coalition to help you achieve your goals and the steps you would take to overcome these challenges. Major challenges that might affect the coalition among the stakeholders include aspects such as the stakeholders’ devastation from other activities. If that occurs, non-coalition measures may turn out to ineffective, and the company may be deteriorated in general. A coalition within an organization might only be strong and weak at the same time (Lea, 2004). Every stakeholder member in the organization might have different points of capitals and knowledge, as well as different interior challenges. Companies that offer a lot of capital and guidance may become frustrated with other stakeholders’ inadequacies (Lea, 2004). To avoid these challenges the company should always consider reduction of distraction in work activities, and every stakeholder should understand their roles in the company. Managers should involve all members in the decision making process so that others do not feel that they are not recognized in the coalition. All-powerful stakeholders should be given duties so that they feel acknowledged and part of the company. The company should conduct frequent meetings so that people share their grievances, and problems are solved to avoid conflicts (Lea, 2004). Lea (2004) states that a company should embrace strategic planning to rise above coalition challenges. All stakeholders getting involved in strategic planning can achieve this especially when planning to obtain resources, and through this, the stakeholders learn to work together without conflicting their ideas. They should always aim at sustaining coalition momentum within the company. To achieve this, the stakeholders should plan for sustainability at the onset of the coalition’s goals, and focus on communal ownership, support, development of resources, sponsorship, changing policy, and institutionalization of partnership programs by associate organizations (Lea, 2004). It is important to choose unifying issues when developing a coalition within the company. This starts by identifying a common unifying factor, and it is done by ensuring that the development of company goals takes a cooperative process, instead of one or two stakeholders or representatives determining the goals or objectives and then appealing to others to join them in their final decision (Lea, 2004). The company should also identify each member’s interests in relation to the company’s goals and objectives. This can be achieved by providing a balance between the objectives and the interests of the company coalition, as well as the individual stakeholder (Lea, 2004). To maintain an effective coalition without challenges, the company should try to respect every stakeholder’s in-house process. Therefore, it is important to appreciate and respect the dissimilarities among stakeholders (Lea, 2004). These dissimilarities are usually obvious in procedures or series of command made for decision-making within the company. All stakeholders should try to make an obligation to study the exclusive values, past, interests, arrangement, and an outline of the other stakeholders and companies involved. For a coalition to succeed within an organization its leaders should take responsibility of availing the agenda to connect people and to obtain sources for funds, as well as other capitals within an organization (Lea, 2004). Coalitions should involve community stakeholders who might soften the resistance and barriers to coalition. This is because coalition raises awareness in turn avoiding the duplication of resources (Keep, 2003). It is important to note that, coalition is an eminent way for stakeholders from diverse backgrounds to group together and make an effort of realization of their common objectives. Once the objectives are met, the stakeholders might decide to keep some interaction as an outcome of the relationship developed during their coalition (Heath and Norman, 2004). This leaves an opening for the development of another coalition in future within the organization. If another issue develops that is of common interest among the company stakeholders, it is addressed. Despite the coalition developing a positive work environment, other stakeholders always have different motivation. For instance, one participant will work with an aim of achieving the company’s goals, while the others might work for his or her own financial gains. This might in turn affect the coalition negatively (Heath and Norman, 2004). In conclusion, a coalition is a combination of individuals, and company stakeholders working together to influence products on a specific issue. Coalitions are important for achieving a broad variety of goals that go beyond the ability of any distinct member of stakeholders. These objectives range from sharing of information, sharing of services to support major policies or environmental changes. It is important within an organization because it increases generic sense to represent verities within the company. Coalitions can be used within the company to reduce conflicts in the company. They occur within an organization to keep and even improve companies’ concerns, whether those of a stakeholder or company staffs. References Heath, J., and Norman, W. (2004). Stakeholder Theory, Corporate Governance and Public Management: What Can the History of State-Run Enterprises Teach Us in the Post-Enron Era. Journal of Business Ethics 53(3): 247–266. Keep, W. (2003). Adam Smith's Imperfect Invisible Hand: Motivations to Mislead. Business Ethics: A European Review 12(4): 343–354. Lea, D. (2004). The Imperfect Nature of Corporate Social Responsibilities to Stakeholders. Business Ethics Quarterly 14(2): 201–217. Read More