 |  Business and Society: Corporate Strategy, Public Policy, Ethics, 10/e James Post,
Boston University
Anne T Lawrence,
San Jose State University
James Weber,
Duquesne University
Business and Public Issues
Chapter Summary- The macroenvironment generates economic, social, technological, and political issues for organizations. Managers must learn to look outward to understand key developments and anticipate their impact on the business.
- Stakeholder expectations can, if unmet, trigger action to transform social concern into pressure on business and government. The existence of a gap between performance and expectations stimulates the formation of a public issue.
- The public issue life cycle describes the evolution of a social concern through stages of politicalization, formal government action, and implementation of legally mandated change. Every public issue passes through these stages, and managers can predict what will happen if the performance-expectations gap is not closed.
- An organization's public affairs function is charged with collecting and analyzing information about the social and political environment, communicating with internal audiences, and interacting with stakeholders to achieve the organization's objectives.
- Issues management includes identification and analysis of issues; development of policy options; program design; implementation; and evaluation of the results of such activities.
- Strategic management of stakeholder relations involves awareness of stakeholders and their interests, proactive planning of relationship development with them, and readiness to respond quickly and effectively to issues and crises.
- Companies can develop reactive, proactive, or interactive strategies to respond to public issues. Some steadfastly adhere to inactive strategies. Most organizations develop separate strategies for each issue they are trying to manage.
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education