Everyone who is in any way connected with an organisation – the stakeholders can influence its success or failure.  However, some stakeholders are more powerful than others are and so they can exert more influence.

In private sector organisations, the stakeholders with most influence tend to be people like owners or managers.

Owners

Owners can influence a business by the decisions that they make such as:

• what products to sell
• what prices to charge
• where to locate the business
• the objectives of the business

Managers

Managers can influence a business by the decisions that they make such as:

• staffing structures
• delegation of tasks
• performance in carrying out day to day decisions

Staff

Staff can influence a business by:

• take or threaten industrial action such as striking or working to rule to try and get the business to do as they want

Suppliers

Suppliers can influence a business by:

• changing the periods of credit
• changing  the discounts they offer and the price

Customers

Customers can influence a business by:

• stop buying the product
• buy products from  the businesses competitor

The Government

The Government can influence a business by:

• introducing laws that affect the business
• increasing/decreasing cooperation tax

Local Community

Local Community can influence a business by:

• Putting pressure on firms through action groups (eg Greenpeace) and government