What Is a Proactive Stakeholder?
In order to remain competitive and make money for its owners, a company needs to find ways to grow. As a business grows, the number of people impacted by its actions also increases. Stakeholders, which include many different groups of people who experience the direct or indirect consequences of an organization's operations and policies, have a number of options for how to respond.
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Definition
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Proactive stakeholders are groups or individuals who take action to encourage or prevent the effects that an organization's actions will have on them in the future. By definition, proactivity refers to taking action in anticipation of a particular outcome or event. In the field of business, proactive stakeholders develop opinions about what decisions a firm should make, and voice those opinions in an attempt to influence the outcome of an uncertain situation.
Examples
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Any given business is likely to have many different types of stakeholders, any number of whom may be proactive. Executives and employees rely on a business for their income, making them financial stakeholders. Investors are also financial stakeholders, though they rely on the value of a business and their ability to sell their ownership shares. Competitors are stakeholders, since their own firms' performances depend on how the competitor performs. Residents who live near a company's facilities may be stakeholders if they experience an environmental impact from the business.
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Proactivity
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Stakeholders can exercise proactivity in many ways, all of which rely on taking action. For example, stockholders become proactive stakeholders when they vote at annual meetings to elect members for the board of directors. Workers exercise proactivity when they put forth extra effort to make a company succeed. Resident stakeholders who circulate petitions to change a company's environmental policies or file lawsuits against it are being proactive, as well.
Consequences
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A business can respond to proactive stakeholders by initiating change. In the case of concerned environmentalists, proactive stakeholders may lead a company's leadership to adopt new stewardship policies or close polluting factories. Corporate bylaws require businesses to comply with the decisions of proactive stakeholders who own stock and vote at annual meetings. The type of stakeholder and the nature of the proactive behavior determines whether a response is necessary, and whether it has a positive or negative impact on the business.
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