HRMG 4203 Week 8 Stakeholder Read of Responses Example

Who Gains, Who Loses and Who Can Block It: A Stakeholder Read of Three Responses to Weekend Departures at the Commerce Street Hotel, Using Power, Legitimacy and Urgency

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Walden University

HRMG 4203: Human Resource Management: Analysis and Problems

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Who Gains, Who Loses and Who Can Block It: A Stakeholder Read of Three Responses to Weekend Departures at the Commerce Street Hotel, Using Power, Legitimacy and Urgency

Three Responses, Named Not Argued

With late checkouts against a fixed room quota left standing as the likeliest explanation for why the Commerce Street Hotel keeps losing its newest weekend attendants, three responses come into view. First, cap the number of late checkouts sold per floor on weekends. Second, lower the weekend room quota, from 15 rooms to 13, on any day when late checkouts exceed an agreed number. Third, spread new hires across both teams instead of starting them all on weekends. This read does not choose among them; comparison is next week's work. It asks how each would land on the people in the case.

The Grid

Table 1

Effects of Three Responses on Seven Stakeholder Groups

Composite case. Effects reasoned from case facts; no figures are invented.

What the Grid Reveals

Each response helps the group bearing the problem, weekend new hires, but each hurts someone different. The cap hurts revenue, which lands on the front-office manager and the general manager. The sliding quota hurts the labor budget, which lands on the executive housekeeper and the general manager. Spreading new hires hurts weekday attendants, who would absorb more training, and weekend veterans, some of whom chose weekends. No response leaves every group better off, which is normal for a staffing decision and is the reason the read comes before any option is chosen, while every group can still be heard. The pattern repeats in every column, so the choice among responses will turn on whose losses the hotel can best absorb. Including guests matters because they appear on both sides of the cap: some lose an option they want, while all benefit if rooms are ready on time.

Power, Legitimacy and Urgency

Effects alone do not predict adoption. Mitchell et al. (1997) offer a way to rate this, judging each group on power, legitimacy and urgency. In this case the ratings matter less as labels than for what they predict: the groups that score high on all three will decide which response survives, and the rest will be consulted, if at all, after the choice is made.

Table 2

Salience of the Seven Groups

Composite case. Ratings reasoned from each group's role in the case.

Most Affected, Least Heard

The group most affected is the least able to influence the outcome. Weekend new hires carry high legitimacy and urgency, since they bear the squeeze and are leaving because of it, but almost no power. They are by definition new, have no seniority, have few ties to the hotel (Mitchell et al., 2001) and are not represented in the meetings where options are chosen. In Mitchell et al.'s (1997) terms they are dependent stakeholders: their claim will be met only if a more powerful group takes it up. In this case that group is the executive housekeeper, who has power, legitimacy and urgency because she must staff the weekends and answer for unready rooms.

The Objection Each Must Survive

Each response faces a predictable objection from a powerful group. The cap must survive the front-office manager's revenue concern, since late checkout is a paid product sold most heavily on convention weekends. The sliding quota must survive the general manager's labor budget, since a two-room reduction on heavy days means more attendant hours per occupied room. Spreading new hires must survive the preferences of weekend veterans and the workload of weekday attendants, and it does least to address the squeeze itself, since it moves new hires away from the problem rather than changing it. Freeman (1984) argued that managers who map these interests early can design responses that address the strongest objections before they become blocks; the comparison next week will weigh the two responses that seem most able to survive theirs.

References

Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Pitman.

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/10.5465/amr.1997.9711022105

Mitchell, T. R., Holtom, B. C., Lee, T. W., Sablynski, C. J., & Erez, M. (2001). Why people stay: Using job embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44(6), 1102-1121. https://doi.org/10.5465/3069391