Skip to content

Marketing Thought

Clarifying management/marketing theory

Menu
  • Neil Bendle
  • Popular Marketing Metrics: How Not To Mess Them Up
  • Marketing Metrics 4th Edition Book
  • Marketing PhD Applications
  • Advice For The Marketing Academic Job Market
  • Sustainable Marketing Strategy
  • Public Policy, Behavioral Economics and Marketing
Menu

Improving Stakeholder Involvement In Government Decision Making

Posted on July 31, 2020September 29, 2021 by neilbendle

In this blog post I discuss our work on improving stakeholder involvement in government decision making. The Journal of Business Ethics published this in July 2020.

Understanding The Views of Stakeholders

A major problem in government is understanding the views of its stakeholders. A stakeholder is those who are impacted by, or can impact, the activity. Unfortunately, governments often do not properly engage with stakeholders. As a result stakeholders struggle to make their voices heard. Indeed, many people deserve to have their voices heard. Yet traditional government policy does not fully represent all people and groups. (For more on improving public policy see here)

Our paper just published online by the Journal Business Ethics seeks to address this. To help improve the quality of stakeholder engagement in public policy. Engagement has to go a long way beyond just asking citizens over a certain age to cast the occasional vote. At the risk of returning to unpleasant subjects consider the Brexit vote. Asking a question is one thing. Another thing entirely is to know what the alternatives really entail.

Trending
Don’t Use One Industry To Create Examples For CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)

I was lucky to be able to work on this with my co-authors. Jennifer Lees-Marshment, at the University of Auckland. She is an expert on political marketing and management. My other co-author was Aimee Huff, at Oregon State, an expert on qualitative work. Working with colleagues outside my traditional area allowed me to participate in some really interesting research. Research beyond my typical focus.

Principles For Improving Stakeholder Involvement In Government Decision Making

Jennifer had conducted extensive discussions with policy makers. This formed the basis of our thinking about how to increase engagement.

We, therefore, asked:

  • Who should governments seek to involve?
  • How should they be involved?

Firstly, engagement should be Broad. We suggest that all relevant parties must be engaged. This includes all those with a moral claim to be involved. Moreover, governments should include those with a strategic claim to be involved. By which we mean those who can help make policy happen.

Secondly, engagement must also be Deep. There are a lot of policy questions that need more than just a knee jerk reaction. Most of us do not have the knowledge to meaningfully discuss medical ethics. As such, we need a lot of background support to get us to a place where our thoughts are cogent.

Finally, the engagement needs to be Continual. This implies that it isn’t enough to ask people and then never go back to them. Perspectives change with time and knowledge.

Broad, Deep and Continual Engagement Is Needed When Improving Stakeholder Involvement In Government Decision Making
Broad, Deep and Continual Engagement Is Needed When Improving Stakeholder Involvement In Government Decision Making

A Department For Engagement

To create the sort of broad, deep and continual engagement needed we suggest changing government. Creating a permanent department responsible for engagement. Engaging with the public by government is challenging. We hope our article provides a step on how to improve it.

Read: Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Aimee Dinnin Huff & Neil Bendle (2020) A Social Commons Ethos in Public Policy-Making, Journal of Business Ethics online

Share on Social Media
twitter facebook linkedin reddit

  • Using Data In Decisions
  • The Brussels Effect
  • Communicating Numbers
  • Market Research Lessons

MASB’s Universal Marketing Dictionary

Need a marketing definition? Use MASB’s Universal Marketing Dictionary. Click for the MASB Universal Marketing Dictionary

Pages in Marketing Thought

  • A Plea About Language Used In Marketing
  • Advice For The Marketing Academic Job Market
  • Behavioral Econ For Kids: The Cartoon Book
  • Data Visualization Advice
  • Machine Learning (ML) And Marketing: What Should You Know?
  • Marketing In The Movies
  • Marketing Metrics 4th Edition Book
    • Chapter of Marketing Metrics 4th Edition, Free Sample
  • Marketing PhD Applications
  • Marketing Thought Website Data
  • Neil Bendle
  • Popular Marketing Metrics: How Not To Mess Them Up
    • Brand Valuation: Progress But Lots More Needed
    • Customer Equity: Nice Idea, Bit Of A Mess In Execution
    • How To Use, And Misuse, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
    • Is ROI The Most Abused Term In Marketing?
    • Market Share: Always An Indicator Never A Target
    • Marketing Accounts: A Better Way To Measure Marketing Performance
    • Measuring Competition With The Bendle Panda Index
    • Net Promoter Score: Sadly Not As Magical As Supporters Suggest
    • Profit Measurement: Choose Your Own Level Is Problematic
    • Tobin’s Q: Why Academics Should Listen To Managers
    • Total Q, A New Improved Tobin’s Q? Not By Much
    • Value Of A Like: Do Not Use For Budgeting
  • Public Policy, Behavioral Economics and Marketing
  • Recommended Books
  • Sustainable Marketing Strategy
    • B Corp Research Papers
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Measuring Culture Is A Challenge, But Don’t Be Silly
      • Rationality And Marketing Strategy
      • Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
      • Strategy And Evolutionary Thinking
  • Sustainable Marketing Strategy Cases
©2023 Marketing Thought | Built using WordPress and Responsive Blogily theme by Superb
Go to mobile version