Stakeholder Analysis - Methods of Stakeholder Mapping

Methods of Stakeholder Mapping

The following list identifies some of the best known and most commonly used methods for stakeholder mapping:

• (Mitchell, Agle et al. 1997) proposed a classification of stakeholders based on power to influence, the legitimacy of each stakeholder’s relationship with the organization, and the urgency of the stakeholder’s claim on the organization. The results of this classification may assess the fundamental question of "which groups are stakeholders deserving or requiring manager’s attention, and which are not?" This is salience - "the degree to which managers give priority to competing stakeholder claims" (Mitchell, Agle et al., 1997:854)
• (Fletcher, Guthrie et al. 2003) defined a process for mapping stakeholder expectations based on value hierarchies and Key Performance Areas (KPA),
• (Cameron, Crawley et al. 2010) defined a process for ranking stakeholders based on needs and the relative importance of stakeholders to others in the network.
• (Savage, Nix et al. 1991) offer a way to classify stakeholders according to potential for threat and potential for cooperation.
• (Turner, Kristoffer and Thurloway, 2002) have developed a process of identification, assessment of awareness, support, influence leading to strategies for communication and assessing stakeholder satisfaction, and who is aware or ignorant and whether their attitude is supportive or opposing.

Mapping techniques include the following sub-set of results from a Web search of analysis techniques being used by aid agencies, governments or consultant groups:

• Influence-interest grid (Imperial College London)
• Power-impact grid (Office of Government Commerce UK 2003)
• Mendelow's Power-interest grid (Aubrey L. Mendelow, Kent State University, Ohio 1991)

• Three-dimensional grouping of power, interest and attitude (Murray-Webster and Simon 2005)
• The Stakeholder Circle (Bourne 2007)

The first step in building any stakeholder map is to develop a categorised list of the members of the stakeholder community. Once the list is reasonably complete it is then possible to assign priorities in some way, and then to translate the ‘highest priority’ stakeholders into a table or a picture. The potential list of stakeholders for any project will always exceed both the time available for analysis and the capability of the mapping tool to sensibly display the results, the challenge is to focus on the ‘right stakeholders’ who are currently important and to use the tool to visualise this critical sub-set of the total community.

The most common presentation styles use a matrix to represent two dimensions of interest with frequently a third dimension shown by the colour or size of the symbol representing the individual stakeholders.

Some of the commonly used ‘dimensions’ include:

• Power (high, medium, low)
• Support (positive, neutral, negative)
• Influence (high or low)
• Need (strong, medium, weak)