Tuesday 13 December 2011

Lobbying and the impact of the Stakeholder


Like any aspect of business PR has huge dependency on its stakeholders. With a stakeholder being anyone who has an influence on a business it is crucial a good rapour is created to have a positive impact on the business. Stakeholders vary from employees to customers to the media so do we assume the way of building relationships does as well? Lobbying as defined by Luneburg and Susman [2005, p.200] is ‘any oral or written communication to a government official’. Reasons for doing this may include improving your profile or building contacts. Looking at these reasons it would suggest lobbying is not very honest or fair as certain clichés are built to satisfy one’s own interest. There is no argument however that lobbying isn’t successful.

An example of lobbying is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp having an influence in the implementation of the new Panama free trade act. This makes it harder for the US government to clamp down on tax avoidance. News Corp has a subsidiary in Panama so it would seem there were personal gains to be made in the form of News Corp having to pay less tax. It does suggest that politicians also had personal gains because the rumour and speculation threat was so apparent in the form of News Corp publishing stories politicians acted to keep their ‘stakeholder happy’. Surely we should be concerned that politicians who are suppose to provide equal opportunities for all are so easily influenced? Does it also show the power the media of today has?

Overall looking at this example of lobbying honesty and fairness were not important in the successful practice of PR.

With there being a variety of stakeholders to any business should we not be surprised that they are categorised in terms of importance? This process is called stakeholder mapping. Anderson et al [2008, p.32] states stakeholder mapping takes 3 stages

  1. Identify the various internal and external stakeholders to your business
  2. Analyse their needs and expectations
  3. Analyse the position and importance of each stakeholder

I think the businesses needs and goals should be added to this to give an accurate reflection. Can you think of any other important factors?

In the case of lobbying politicians are seen to be the most important stakeholder. Politicians are classified as a public sector stakeholder which in my opinion should counter the argument that there should be favouritism, what do you think?

In the wider scheme of things is it fair for the end user i.e. the customer to be deemed less important than another stakeholder? Wouldn’t we as the customer want to feel part of the brand? If the boot was on the other foot we would want our needs to be the primary focus? Of course the media is important as a stakeholder as it connects PR and its public but it shouldn’t overshadow the importance of the end user. If it is used to improve your product/service it is different as the end user is the beneficiary. It is the same if someone with specific knowledge is employed for a specific task we as the customer can see the value being added. Of course it could be argued putting importance on the media may be a successful PR strategy as rumour and speculation may be reduced.

At the end of the day goals and strategies of any business sector are influenced by a lot of stakeholders however in turn their goals and strategies may not be the same. There is no doubt targeting specific stakeholders such as the practicing of lobbying is successful but honesty and fairness are not critical to its success.

Thank you for taking the time to read these series of blogs. I hope it’s given you some insight into the goings on of PR and gets you thinking.

Best wishes

Alex McNamara


References

Luneburg, W. and Susman, T. (2005). A complete guide to federal law, governing lawyers and lobbyists. London: ABA Publishing.

Anderson, B. et al.  (2008). Mapping Work Processes. Milwaukee: ASQ Mission.
Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. tom14 December 2011 at 15:21

    If the business in question was providing a service to the public, and by lobbying could achieve a decrease in tax, would this not be putting the customer as the most important stake holder, if they were to pass any decrease in cost to them. Presuming a businesses biggest cost after the cost of manufacture etc is government taxation and legislation, would not reducing this cost so it could be spent (in an ideal word) on improving the service to the end user be more beneficial. Again with making contacts, this may not always be for selfish reasons and may in fact act as a benefit to the end user.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alex15 December 2011 at 08:11

    First of all thanks for the comment Tom. You make an interesting point. I believe the customer is the most important asset to a business and providing them with the best value is crucial. As is shown by the News Corp case it was not the customer who benefited but the company itself. A business at the end of the day needs to make a profit and if lobbying helps make the business sustainable and this capital is reinvested into the service does the customer mind? I just think situations where monopolies can arise should be monitored more carefully as this will end up being unfair to the end user and companies who partake in these actions show little intergrity and honesty to the customer

    ReplyDelete
  3. William Scott McPherson15 December 2011 at 13:29

    I think it all depends on what the cause is. your example of the news corp lobbying strategy is a typical case and is the reason why lobbying is regareded with such contempt.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alex16 December 2011 at 03:21

    Yes at the end of the day Lobbying achieves certain goals and so therefore is a useful tool, but it is just too many people who have selfish reasons to achieve these goals which gives Lobbying a bad name

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)