SML · Week 4.3: Engaging Stakeholders

Interactive Activity

Stakeholder Salience Pyramid

Drag each stakeholder to the correct level of the Salience Pyramid

(Top = highest salience / priority)

Definitive Stakeholder
Power + Legitimacy + Urgency → Act immediately

Dominant Stakeholder
Power + Legitimacy → Manage closely

Dependent Stakeholder
Legitimacy + Urgency, no Power → Needs advocacy

← Lower priority     Higher priority →

Stakeholders — drag to the pyramid level above

Major institutional investor (35% shareholding) demands emergency board meeting — and can force it.

Local community group affected by factory pollution — legitimate grievance, urgent need, but no power to force action.

Board of directors — formal authority over executive decisions, legitimate governance role, rarely urgent.

Regulatory authority with enforcement powers issues compliance notice requiring immediate action.

Strategic partner with contractual influence over product roadmaps — participates in quarterly steering committees.

Displaced workers from a closed factory — legitimate and urgent claim for retraining, but no formal leverage.