Communication with Stakeholders: An Integrated Approach Eileen Scholes and David Clutterbuck TODAY, THE QUESTION FOR THE Board and for those who advise them in the area of strategy and com- munication planning, is not whether they should be communicating with this or that stakeholder group but how to manage communication across stake- holder groups. Academics and commentators may still be arguing about what constitutes a stakeholder. Or whether it is best (or indeed feasible) to take a "stakeholder approach", or only a "shareholder return", approach to business (Andrew Campbell and John Argenti's recent exchange in Vol 30 of Long Range Planning illustrates graphically this divergence of views). On the front-line, managers are confronting the need to deal with the growing power of individual stakeholder groups and the increasingly complex links between them, often with mixed success. In the search for possible redeeming strategies, it is impor- tant that we first revisit the factors that lie behind the power and the links. • Globalisation. More organisations are fighting their battles on a world-wide stage--not only for custom but for capital, for employees with the right skills and attitudes and even for their licence to operate in local communities. At the same time, industries which are being forced to consolidate inter- nationally (even Defence, for example) are seeing the distinction between competitor, customer and supplier become blurred, making each player more influential on the other. • The rise of the professional investor. The overall proportion of funds in private hands has declined dramatically: fund managers' interests in how the company is and will be performing goes way deeper than the annual P&L statement, nor will they wait for the annual meeting to make their views heard. • The rise of the sophisticated customer. On every aspect of the "value" mix--from price and product to convenience and service, today's customer is increasingly aware of new possibilities and there- fore more demanding, a trend only intensified by the consolidation of consumer product and retail chain branding. • The rise of the empowered employee. With old managerial structures being dismantled and a reduction in the power of trade unions, individuals are taking more responsibility for improved per- formance--their own and the organisation'swand in turn, demanding more of a say in what happens around them. • The information revolution. Inside and outside organisations, the number of people who may now see, hear and start reacting within minutes to news of a take-over, a strike or a chemical spill, for exam- ple, is increasing at a phenomenal rate, thanks to the spread of electronic communication. • Rising awareness of the influence of business on society (for good and ill). Ethics and corporate Pergamon PII: S0024-6301(98)00007-7 LongRangePlanning, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 227 to 238, 1998 © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0024-6301/98 $19.00+0.00