Article Summary: Managing the Extended Enterprise: The New Stakeholder View It has long been recognized that critical interdependencies exist among the firm, its employees, customers, investors, communities, and constituencies. This article develops a new “Stakeholder View” of the firm that stresses stakeholder relationships in the creation of organizational wealth, which is a useful view for analyzing and managing today’s much more complex, extended enterprises. The extended enterprise serves as the centerpiece of a network of inter-related stakeholders that create, sustain, and enhance its value creating capacity. Stakeholders are individuals and constituencies that contribute either voluntarily or involuntarily to its wealth creating capacity and activities, and who are therefore its potential beneficiaries and/or risk bearers. Stakeholders fall into one of 3 dimensions– Resources, Industry Structure, and Social-Political Setting – each of what must be understood because any stakeholder relationship may be the most critical one at a particular time or on a particular issue. See attached Table 1 for a summary of the three dimensions and their impact on the extended enterprise. This Stakeholder View recognizes linkages between the extended enterprise and its multiple constituents as the principal means of sustaining and enhancing its wealth-creating capacity. Because of their linkage with the firm, these constituents have a “stake” in its operations; that is, they have something “at risk,” the possibility of gaining greater or lesser benefits, or experiencing greater or lesser harms as a result of the firm’s operations. Once you develop an understanding of the Stakeholder View, it’s important to implement an effective framework to managing these stakeholders by focusing on the following tasks:

1) Identify relevant stakeholders and their potential impact on the success or failure of the enterprise.

2) Specify the goals to be achieved by each stakeholder relationship (e.g. loyalty, efficiency, and cooperation), the factors contributing to goal achievement, and the risks involved.

3) Develop opportunities for mutual benefit. 4) Monitor inter-stakeholder relationships and attempt to harmonize or balance them

as much as possible.