STAKEHOLDERS

Event Stakeholders and the Role of Stakeholder Manager



Event Stakeholders and the Role of Stakeholder Manager

Introduction

Success of an event depends on its effective management, which requires careful planning and decision making. It is the responsibility of an event manager to ensure that an event must be successful and it must achieve all the desired tasks successfully. Along with event mangers, event stockholders also play important role for the success of an event. It is also important that an event manager must be aware of the needs and expectations of the event stakeholders.

Event Stakeholders

“Event stakeholders are the groups or individuals who are affected or could be affected by an event's existence” (Ziakas, 2013, p.154). According to Ziakas there are two types of event stakeholders; primary stake holders and secondary stake holders. Primary event stakeholders are the most important group of people, without whom, existence of event is not possible. On the other hand, secondary event stakeholders may or may involve directly in the event management, but they pay an important role in impeding the success of the event (Ziakas, 2013). Stakeholders are groups or individuals, who affect and affected by the event or project, these can be owners, employees, directors, creditors, suppliers, government, and community.

Role and Strategies of a Stakeholder Manager

Stakeholder managers have various roles and responsibilities that involves, identifying stock holders; meeting expectations, interests, and demands of stakeholders; designing and setting policies that can accomplish the needs of stakeholders in the best possible ways (Reiss, 2006). It also involves managing projects, events, and any tasks that are required to be conducted in order to fulfil demands of stakeholders. It is also responsibility of the stakeholder mangers to ensure transparency and accountability. Apart from this, it is also responsibility to ensure that an organization must perform corporate social responsibilities, and mangers are responsible for managing all these tasks.

Creating better and effective relationships among all the stakeholders is also an important role of stakeholder managers. Strategies of stakeholder managers involve effective communication, monitoring, negotiating, accomplishing tasks defined by stakeholders, and following ethical and moral considerations (Chinyio and Olomolaiye, 2009).

Source: (Chinyio and Olomolaiye, 2009, p.125)

The Importance of Stakeholder: A Major Element to Establish an Event

Stakeholders are very important for the success of an organization; stakeholders assist in defining, identifying, and designing the expectations of the project or any task. Managers work and plan in order to meet the expectations of the stakeholders. It is essential to identify and acknowledge the need of stakeholders, it assists in designing and setting the goals that need to achieve. Managers also design strategies and policies in order to satisfy the stakeholders.

According to Goldblatt (2008), event strategic plan provides definition of event stakeholders and importance of stakeholders in defining, “steps, people, time frame, and other critical elements” associated with the event or project management (Goldblatt, 2008, p.107). According to Reid stakeholders are important for emphasizing the “transparency, collaboration, and involvement of stakeholder…bringing them closer…” (Reid cited by Ziakas, 2013, ...