16-07-2012, 12:53 PM
project management (PM)
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Introduction
Stakeholder management is an important aspect of project management (PM). This paper aims to identify different stakeholder management approaches and the associated methods of analysing stakeholders and strategy to deal with them. Multiple views on stakeholder management and best practice will be considered and reviewed with case studies being used to highlight the theory-practice gap.
Stakeholder Management – Literature Review
Over the course of the last few decades there has been a shift in managerial thinking that has markedly changed the business landscape. In the past, the majority of managers focused on increasing owners’ value, which has been criticised given the myopic view that is also referred to as “shareholder model of governance” (Johnson et al., 2008). Given today’s global and fast-changing environment managers tend to adopt a more holistic view of the purpose of the organisation. In this respect, business ethics and corporate social responsibility are concepts that have gained more significance in recent decades. At the core of these concepts is stakeholder management, which is considered a key lever for achieving project success (Burke and Barron, 2007).
Best practice
PM offers organizations the means to be efficient, effective, and competitive in a shifting, complex, and unpredictable environment (Lavagnon, 2009). As projects operate in an environment broader than that of the project itself (Duncan, 1996), almost every project takes place in a context where stakeholders play a major role in the accomplishment of the project with projects being sensitive to actions and decisions taken by the stakeholders. (Karlsen, 2002; Ward and Chapman, 2008). Furthermore, if stakeholders are not fully committed to the project they may withhold essential resources, defect or adversely influence other stakeholders (Duncan, 1996; Kappelman et al, 2006).
UK ID-card system
In 2006, the UK government planned to issue biometric identity cards with the official aim to better protect personal identity, tackle illegal working and immigration abuse and prevent crime. Sensitive personal data of citizens were to be stored in a central database (Heath, 2009; BBC, 2009). Questions were raised about the usefulness of the scheme, the security of data and the government’s ability to run the scheme successfully. Due to a budget-cut caused by the recession external organizations were to overtake the government’s task to register citizens and collect their sensitive data (ITPRO, 2008). Likewise, the government decided to rely on existing technology instead of implementing a new IT-system, although IT-experts questioned its robustness (BBC, 2009d; McCue, 2009). Many official bodies such as the OGC, Privacy International or the Law Society as well as politicians, experts and scholars warned off the scheme (Heath, 2009; Ferguson, 2009; Ibrahim, 2009; Privacy International, 2004; Bell, no date). According to a survey 9 in 10 citizens worried about data security, which came with no surprise given that the technology had been breached and hacked several times (Dean, 2009; Ballard, 2009; Charette, 2009; Kirk, 2007).