INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we discuss how the stakeholder concept can be used in the implementation and monitoring tasks of Strategic management. Once again, I do not assume that the programs and strategies to be implemented or monitored are necessarily those developed using the methods in the previous two chapters. Chapter Three shows that the three levels of stakeholder analysis—rational, process and transactional—must achieve some degree of “fit” if an organization is to have a high capability for stakeholder management. This chapter explores the transactional level in more detail, through an analysis of how to implement strategies and programs for stakeholders. In addition, the monitoring task of Strategic management can be seen as seeking to ensure that the three levels of analysis fit together in some coherent fashion.

The transactional level of analysis is the bottom line of Strategic management, where the organization “engages” the external environment. It is where the organization “does its business.” The transactional level is the set of behaviors which an organization undertakes to establish and maintain the relationships that it has with its stakeholders. It asks, “what do we do now,” and “how do we engage in the behaviors that our strategies and programs warrant?” Yet another term is “strategy execution,” the carrying out of Strategic tasks and seeing them through to completion.