Conflict Between Different Stakeholders

In a business there will always be stakeholders. By using this term we refer to the people inside of a business which have interests or concerns in a companie. There are various stakeholders in a company a clear example the shareholders, they are people that hold shares within the company, the employees or workers, the suppliers and the government. Sometimes in a business conflict may arise between these different stakeholders because of the different interests that they hold in the company. This is because the interests that the workers have in the company are not the same interests that the shareholders have within the company and that the government and banks have, and this is where the conflict begins. In this essay I will discuss and give some examples of conflicts between these different stakeholders and how they may come to an amicable resolution. The shareholders are probably the ones in the company with the highest steaks. If the company losses income or if the company in the worst case scenario goes bankrupt then they will also go bankrupt. Their prime interest is to make the companie progress no matter what cost this implies and improve the income that the company has. However this is different to the interest of an employe whose primary objective is to have a stable job with a fixed salary, we may say that this is also the case of a worker in the companie. The career and lives depend on the work that the company gives them and the situation that the company is in. We may say that they also have high steaks in the company. The bank may also be considered a stakeholder, because if the bank has lent a large loan to the company and the company is failing to return that money then the bank will be affected financially. The customers are considered stakeholders because they want to ensure that the suppliers have the essential materials for them. If not they will loss the supply and the company will have problems. The suppliers may be considered stakeholders because if the company stops buying their materials then they will be out of business and if the company is having above average profits It could be that the suppliers are suffering and not getting the correct price for their goods and services (Clarke et .al. 1992). However there is one one key stakeholder, the community. They are considered stakeholders because what if the company makes a decision in which they will be affected by great levels of pollution and other wastes. They may be also considered stakeholders because if the local population or the majority of the local population is work dependant of the company then they will also have a large interest in the company's plans for the future. And this is way these people are considered stakeholders in a company. The problem really begins when the interest of these various groups of people start to get mixed and what may be beneficial to one may not be beneficial to the other. A clear example of a conflict arising between the stakeholders is the deepwater horizon oil spill from the company British Petroleum. Millions of people and a large amount of industries were affected by it. For example the gulf of mexico closed down the sea for commercial fishing due to the fact that the water was contaminated and the fish were considered to be toxic. This not only affected the local fishermen but also the food restaurants that depended of the

fishermen as their suppliers. As you can see this incident provoked a long chain reaction and the stakeholders were many. Tourism in the area was also greatly affected by the oil spill from the company, because the golf was so greatly contaminated by the spill tourism around the area dropped greatly meaning the loss of income towards many small and large tourism companies. In this case British Petroleum had to pay 42.2 billion dollars to a fund which helped all of the people affected by the spill. As we can see here the conflict amongst the stakeholders had come to a resolution, however companies may not always have enough money to pay off all of the people affected by a bad decision and the conflict may become worse. If we look at a national conflict between stakeholders there is the clear case of chevron. The locals and the Ecuadorian government have accused chevron to bringing local and environmental harms to the amazon region in their quest to extract petrol. Here we can observe that the people affected may be considered to be the local community and the government. The government is demanding that chevron pay and 18 million dollar fine for the harm done. However as they both cant come to an amicable resolution they have opted for arbitration in a county in Ontario, Canada in order to resolve the conflict. If conflict arises between the stakeholders there are various methods which can be placed in order to resolve the conflict between them. Sources: http://www.chevron.com/ecuador/?utm_campaign=Ecuador_Mitigation&utm_medium=cpc&utm _source=Google&utm_term=chevron_ecuador&gclid=CLLDjdLx2LkCFWpp7Aod2yQAZw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill Paul Clark, Peter Gordon, Mark ODea, John Weiner, Phil Woolrich, Jorge Olmos, L.(2009) Plain English (2nd ed). Business and Management Course Companion: Oxford University Press.