MGT 645 Module 2 Stakeholder Engagement Example

Who Can Stop a Gluten-Free Line? Stakeholder Salience and Engagement for a Food Manufacturing Project

Student Name

Master of Business Administration, Aspen University

MGT 645: Project Management Essentials

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Who Can Stop a Gluten-Free Line? Stakeholder Salience and Engagement for a Food Manufacturing Project

The gluten-free line at Chippewa Valley Pizza Company, the composite Eau Claire manufacturer described in Module 1, will succeed only if many groups support it. Retail buyers must list the product, a certification body must approve the room and procedures, line workers must follow strict practices every shift and consumers with celiac disease must trust the label. What follows names those groups, sorts them by salience and sets out how the project will work with each.

Stakeholder Salience

Mitchell et al. (1997) proposed that the attention a stakeholder receives from managers tracks three attributes. Power is the ability to impose one's will. Legitimacy is the appropriateness of a claim. Urgency describes how time sensitive and pressing a claim is. Stakeholders with one attribute are latent, with two are expectant and with all three are definitive. Salience changes over time as stakeholders gain or lose attributes.

Influence in Every Direction

Bourne and Walker (2005) developed the stakeholder circle to help project managers visualize influence. Stakeholders influence a project upward, as senior managers and sponsors; downward, as team members; sideways, as peers competing for resources; and outward, as customers, regulators and the public. Mapping influence in all directions prevents a project manager from focusing only on the sponsor and team.

From Management to Engagement

Eskerod and Huemann (2013) examined how major project management standards address stakeholders and found that they tended to treat stakeholders as objects to be managed for the project's benefit, with less attention to their legitimate interests or to engaging them as contributors. They argued for engagement that respects stakeholders' perspectives, particularly when projects affect people's lives and work.

Classifying the Stakeholders

Why the Auditor Matters Most

The certification auditor holds all three attributes in Mitchell and colleagues' model. The auditor's power is absolute for this product, since retailers will not list gluten-free pizza without certification; the claim is legitimate because consumers with celiac disease depend on it; and it becomes urgent at start-up, when any finding could delay sales. Engaging the auditor early, by reviewing the room's design at month three rather than seeing it for the first time at month thirteen, turns a gatekeeper into an adviser and catches design problems while they are cheap to fix.

Sideways Influence

Bourne and Walker's sideways direction captures the main plant's supervisors, who compete with the project for maintenance staff and floor space and whose crews will walk past the gluten-free room every day. If they see the project as a burden, rules about traffic and shared equipment will erode. The plan gives them a seat in design sessions on the corridor and changing area.

Engaging Line Workers

Line workers are dependent stakeholders in Mitchell and colleagues' terms: they have legitimate claims and urgency but little power. Yet their practices decide whether cross-contact occurs. Following Eskerod and Huemann, the project will engage them as contributors: six workers will join design sessions on the room's layout, gowning area and cleaning routines and test procedures before start-up.

Engaging Consumers Indirectly

Consumers with celiac disease are discretionary stakeholders with high legitimacy but no direct relationship with the project. The celiac advocacy group offers a channel: its volunteers can review labels and procedures and tell the company what reassures people who cannot risk exposure. Their input may shape packaging claims more than any marketing study.

What Engagement Looks Like Week to Week

Engagement is not a quarterly newsletter. During installation, the equipment vendor's technicians and the plant's maintenance crew will meet every morning for fifteen minutes. During procedure design, line workers will try each gowning and cleaning step on a mock-up and suggest changes. Before samples go to the largest customer, its quality team will visit the room. These working contacts, more than formal reports, build the trust a food safety project needs.

When Stakeholders Disagree

Stakeholders' interests will sometimes conflict. The largest grocery customer wants product as early as possible, while the auditor will not certify until procedures have run cleanly for several weeks. The project manager will not trade certification time for an earlier launch; instead, the customer will receive a firm date with a buffer and regular evidence of progress.

Communication Calendar

The sponsor report goes to the board monthly. The largest customer receives monthly updates and samples at month ten. The certification auditor reviews designs at month three and walks the room at month thirteen. Line worker sessions run monthly from month four. The advocacy group reviews labels at month eleven.

Who Owns Each Relationship

The project manager owns the auditor and equipment vendor relationships, the vice president of sales owns the grocery customers, the plant's human resources manager owns the union and the quality manager owns the flour supplier and advocacy group. Owners report on their stakeholders at each monthly project meeting.

Measuring Engagement

The project will check whether engagement is working: whether the auditor's design comments arrive before construction, whether line workers' suggestions appear in final procedures and whether the grocery customers confirm listing dates on schedule. A stakeholder who stops responding is a warning sign worth acting on early.

Reviewing the Plan

The project manager will update the analysis at each phase gate, since salience changes: the inspector's urgency rises at permitting, the auditor's at start-up.

Conclusion

Mitchell, Agle and Wood's salience model, Bourne and Walker's stakeholder circle and Eskerod and Huemann's case for engagement together produce a plan that gives powerful stakeholders the attention they demand and gives the workers who keep the room safe a real voice.

References

Bourne, L., & Walker, D. H. T. (2005). Visualising and mapping stakeholder influence. Management Decision, 43(5), 649-660. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740510597680

Eskerod, P., & Huemann, M. (2013). Sustainable development and project stakeholder management: What standards say. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 6(1), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538371311291017

Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886. https://doi.org/10.2307/259247