Stakeholders in a Typical Business Marketing Research (Research Paper Sample)

Stakeholders in Business
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
Introduction
Stakeholders are the people that have concern or interest, and in this essay, the interest is in business. A stakeholder in business is any social group, person, organization, or society at large which possesses a stake in a certain business. As in the previous point, there are some stakeholders in business, and this results to their grouping into external and internal stakeholders. This essay attempts to identify the stakeholders that typical businesses interact with, and also assesses the responsibilities of businesses to the stakeholders.
The stakeholder concept has ethical and moral implications for the governance of the business. A business that only has duties to the shareholders lacks any moral obligation to any other organization, person, or society (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). Likewise, businesses that have duties to their stakeholders are obliged to take into account the interests of all stakeholders and do not maximize its focus on the shareholder's interests. Due to this, the management of an organization must balance the interests of its shareholders as well as those of the stakeholders because they are all important in the business (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). A stake is the imperative interest in a specific business or the activities in which it is composed of. A stake may include obligations and legal interests, moral rights, and property interests (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). An example of a legal obligation is a duty to honor contracts or pay wages, and an example of a moral right is the right of consumers that protects them from intentional harm by any business activity.
A corporate stakeholder is a group or individual who affects or is affected by the actions that take place in business. The business fraternity first made use of the stakeholder concept in the year 1963 during the internal memorandum at Stanford Institute of Research (Gerth, 2013). The word stakeholder gained popularity, and it referred to the people possessing legitimate interests in an entity or project. However, the concept has spread wide, and it now includes those with interest in an entity; hence helping out in decision-making processes (Gerth, 2013). Examples of the institutions that enjoy this process are non-profit organizations, government agencies, and large business corporations.
Internal stakeholders
Investors
As noted earlier in the essay, stakeholders are put together into two groups namely external and internal stakeholders. Business managers define internal stakeholders as the entities of business, and an example of such includes investors, managers, employees, and the board of directors (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). Taking the investor as the first stakeholder, this is an organization or person that injects funds into an idea with the hope of achieving profits. An investor utilizes investments so as to elevate their money and also get a constant income after attaining the retirement age (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014).
Investors ride on wide varieties of investment vehicles that exist in the market place. Examples of the investment vehicles include real estate, retirement plans, silver, gold, foreign exchange, future, options, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, commodities, bonds, and stocks (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). An investor typically performs a fundamental and/or technical analysis that determines favorable opportunities of investment and prefers to maximize returns and minimize risks. Every investor is different, and this brings out the uniqueness in their timeframes, preferences, styles, capital, and risk tolerance (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). For example, an investor may prefer a low-risk investment that will lead to a certificate of deposit, a specific bond producer any other conservative gain.
On the other hand, some investors are inclined to taking additional risks in their endeavor to make larger profits. Such investors do not fear taking risks in investment ideas that most people would consider risky like emerging stocks, markets, and currencies whose value can fluctuate any moment (Gerth, 2013). That aside, it is important to note the difference between the terms ‘trader’ and ‘investor’ because an investor typically holds a position for many years, and at times decades. An investor is also referred to as a ‘buy and hold investor’ or a ‘position trader’ (Gerth, 2013). Traders, on the other hand, only hold positions in business for relatively shorter periods. For instance, a scalp trader holds the positions for just a few seconds, and swing traders hold their positions for several days or weeks (Gerth, 2013).
Managers
A manager is known as an individual who is responsible for administering or controlling part of or an entire organization or a similar company. Managers are members of the internal stakeholders and they oversee specific subsets and group tasks in a firm or business (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). As the word insinuates, managers have a staff of people that report to them. For instance, restaurants often have front-of-house managers who lend a helping hand to the patron as he or she supervises a host. In business, a specific person is in charge of all the projects in that business, and the person is referred to as a project manager (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). At times, certain departments in organizations designate managers who should be in line with other managing colleague depending on the function of that specific department.
The manager is most often responsible for particular departments and functions within a company. For example, a manager mostly handles customer support, product quality, sales, marketing, accounting, and also heads the leaders that supervise other employees. In addition, there is the role of a functional or developmental manager who comes up with various initiatives in a firm; but they do not have anybody who reports to them (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). The functional managers are also informal managers in companies who recruit team members and work across functions from the various groups for unique and temporary initiatives (Gerth, 2013).
Managers possess essential skills that make their life easy during their various tasks in the organization. One of the skills that managers develop is the leadership skill which dictates that a manager must motivate and prioritize team members (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). For instance, a manager has social awareness, relationship management, self-management, and self-awareness. To show effectiveness in business, managers must be sources of trust, empathy, and energy as they work to develop their team members (Gerth, 2013). Some of the ways in which effective leaders develop their team members are through coaching, positive feedback, and constructive feedback.
The second skill that is vital for managers is the communication skill which promotes good relations among stakeholders. The manager needs to practice the application of effective communication in interpersonal, large groups, small groups, and also social media interactions (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). Any effective manager understands that the most significant communication aspect is the virtue of listening. The other imperative skill for managers is collaboration which gives the leader a chance to serve as a role model through working together with members of his or her staff (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). Supporting model collaborative behaviors and cross-functional efforts set a good example for the rest of the team (Gerth, 2013).
Fourth, the critical thinking skill comes in handy for managers trying to fit their projects into the businesses bigger picture. The effectiveness of a manger increases as he or she reviews the firm’s priorities with consideration of the larger goal (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). Managers also need to translate the understanding of critical thinking into objectives and meaningful goals for the team members. The fifth skill has to do with finance where effective managers get accustomed to the language of numbers (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). A manager must strive to find out how the firm’s money is invested as he or she ensures that the investment earns good returns (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). It is not necessary that all managers become accountants, but they also need to know the basics for the purpose of management.
Employees
An employee is also an internal stakeholder in a business or organization, and this is a person who works for a salary or wage at a non-executive level. Employees can work full-time or part-time under their various contracts of employment (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014). An employee’s contract can either be expressed or implied, oral or written, and they must possess recognized rights and duties within that organization. To determine whether a person is an employee in a particular organization, the court looks at various aspects (Jeston, & Nelis, 2014). For example, the court can look at the provision of employee benefits, the nature of compensation paid, the tax treatment of the individual, whether the hired person is in business, location of work, and the source of equipment the person uses. Statute like labor laws and compensation acts also carry some employee definitions that the statute uses (Olmedo-Cifuentes, Martínez-León, & Davies, 2014).
Employees are...