2010 - Public Relations Society of America

Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations: A Case Study of Envirocare
Kenneth D. Plowman and Brad L. Rawlins
Brigham Young University
plowman@byu.edu
The value of stakeholders to the successful operation of businesses and other
organizations have received greater emphasis in the business and public relations
literature. Traditionally, businesses have almost exclusively focused on the value of
stockholders, employees and customers to help them reach their goals. However, there
are other groups, without as much vested interest in the success of the organization,
which can also affect business policy and the bottom line. The question becomes, how
do you identify these groups and when can you know when they will have an impact?
This is the question at the heart of stakeholder theory, and inadequate answers to the
question have lead several scholars to criticize the theory and its subsequent artifact,
stakeholder management.
Some of the holes in the stakeholder literature can be plugged by research
conducted in the field of public relations. In particular, public relations studies help to
identify ways to prioritize publics in certain situations, and which publics are important in
your communication strategies during these situations. This paper will merge the
literature of stakeholder theory, stakeholder management, and public relations to develop
a prioritizing strategy that is focused on the need to maintain key relationships during
times of conflict. The strategy is based on three steps: First, identifying stakeholders;
Second, prioritizing the stakeholders according to their attributes; and Third, prioritizing
the stakeholders according to their level of interest in the situation.
Defining Stakeholders and Publics
As Grunig and Repper (1992) noted, “often the terms stakeholder and public are
used synonymously” (p. 125). Stakeholders have been identified in the business
literature according to their relationships to organizations. Publics, in the public relations
and other mass media literature, are often identified according to their relationship to a
message.
Stakeholders
Freeman and Reed (2008) assert that “the stakeholder notion is…a simple one. It
says that there are other groups to whom the corporation is responsible in addition to
stockholders: those groups who have a stake in the actions of the corporation” (p. 49).
The most quoted definition of a stakeholder in business literature is that given by
Freeman (1984) in his book, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Freeman
says a stakeholder is “any group or individual who is affected by or can affect the
achievement of an organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984). In earlier writings, this
definition is what Freeman refers to as the wide sense of a stakeholder; however, he also
spoke of the narrow sense of a stakeholder when he described it as, “any identifiable
group or individual on which the organization is dependent for its continued survival”
(Freeman & Reed, 2008, p. 51). Preston and Donaldson (1995) agreed with the
definitions of Freeman and other scholars, but are careful to make an important addition:
“Stakeholders are identified by their interests in the corporation,” regardless of the
corporation’s interest in them. Other scholars are specific when they say the stakeholders
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