1. Managing Public Issues and Stakeholder Relationships
Chapter 2
Managing Public Issues and Stakeholder Relationships

2. Ch. 2: Key Learning Objectives
Evaluating public issues and their significance to the modern corporation
Applying available tools or techniques to scan an organization’s multiple environments
Describing the steps in the issue management process and determining how to make the process most effective
Identifying who is responsible for managing public issues and the skills required to do so effectively
Understanding how business can build collaborative relationships with stakeholders through engagement, dialogue, and network-building
Identifying the benefits of stakeholder engagement to the business firm

3. Public Issues Public issue
Any issue that is of mutual concern to an organization and one or more of its stakeholders
Stakeholder expectations
A mixture of people’s opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about what constitutes reasonable business behavior

4. Public Issues: Performance-Expectations Gap
Discrepancy between what stakeholders expect and what an organization is actually doing
Important to identify emergent expectations as early as possible
Doing so can gain the company competitive advantage
Failure to understand stakeholder concerns and to respond appropriately will:
Cause the performance–expectations gap to grow
The larger the gap, the greater the risk of stakeholder backlash or missing a major business opportunity

5. The Performance-Expectations Gap
Figure 2.1
The Performance-Expectations Gap

6. Environmental Analysis and Intelligence
A method managers use to gather information about external
issues and trends, so they can develop an organizational
strategy that minimizes threats and takes advantage of new
opportunities
Environmental intelligence
The acquisition of information gained from analyzing the multiple
environments affecting organizations

7. Eight Strategic Radar Screens
Figure 2.2

8. Competitive Intelligence
The systematic and continuous process of gathering, analyzing, and managing external information about the organization’s competitors that can affect the organization’s plans, decisions and operations
Numerous ethical issues arise in acquisition and use of information gathered through competitive intelligence, public affairs managers must be keenly aware of these issues

9. The Issue Management Process
Identify Issue
Anticipating emerging concerns, or “horizon” issues
Analyze Issue
Evaluating the issue; coming to an understanding of how it will evolve and how it will affect the organization
Generate Options
Evaluating action options, involves complex judgments that take into account “non-quantifiable” factors like the company’s reputation
Take Action
Once option is chosen, must design and implement it
Evaluate Results
Must assess results of the program and made adjustments as needed

10. Organizing for Effective Issue Management
Which part of the organization is mobilized to address a particular emerging issue often depends on the nature of the issue itself
A corporation’s issue management activities are usually linked to both the board of directors and to top management levels
Effective global leadership on public issues requires three basic capabilities:
Understanding of the changing business context
Ability to lead in the face of complexity
Connectedness – The ability to engage with external stakeholders in dialogue and partnership

11. Stages in the Business-Stakeholder Relationship
Over time, the nature of business’s relationship with its stakeholders often evolve through a series of stages
Inactive – Companies ignore stakeholder concerns
Reactive – companies act only when forced to do so, and then in a defensive manner
Proactive – Companies try to anticipate stakeholder concerns
Interactive –Companies actively engage stakeholders in an ongoing relationship of mutual respect, openness, and trust

12. Drivers of Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement is, at its core, a relationship
The participation of a business organization and at least one stakeholder organization is necessary, by definition, to constitute engagement
Engagement is most likely when both the company and its stakeholders both have an urgent and important goal, the motivation to participate, and the organizational capacity to engage with one another

13. Making Engagement Work Effectively
In stakeholder dialogue, a business and its stakeholders come together for face-to-face conversations about issues of common concern
Corporations sometimes encounter public issues that they can address effectively only by working collaboratively with other businesses and concerned persons and organizations in stakeholder networks
Engaging with stakeholders benefits businesses by bringing in expertise, enhancing legitimacy, and generating creative solutions to common problems