A corporate stakeholder is a party that can affect or be affected by the actions of the business as

a whole. The stakeholder concept was first used in a 1963 internal memorandum at the Stanford
Research Institute. It defined stakeholders as "those groups without whose support the
organization would cease to exist."
[1]
The theory was later developed and championed by R.
Edward Freeman in the 1980s. Since then it has gained wide acceptance in business practice and
in theorizing relating to strategic management, corporate governance, business purpose and
corporate social responsibility (CSR).

stakeholder
Definition
A person, group, or organization that has direct or indirect stake in an organization
because it can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives, and
policies. Key stakeholders in a business organization include creditors, customers,
directors, employees, government (and its agencies), owners (shareholders), suppliers,
unions, and the community from which the business draws its resources.
Although stakeholding is usually self-legitimizing (those who judge themselves to be
stakeholders are stakeholder ), all stakeholders are not equal and different stakeholders
are entitled to different considerations. For example, a companys customers are
entitled to fair trading practices but they are not entitled to the same consideration as
the company's employees. See also corporate governance.
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Stakeholder analysis is an approach to making policy decisions, primarily in business, which is
based on identifying and prioritizing the interests different groups have in an institution. A
stakeholder analysis examines the stakes which shareholders, suppliers, customers, employees,
or communities may have in a particular issue.
A stakeholder analysis is often used to develop generic strategies; these are meant to be broad
descriptions of what the corporation stands for and how it intends to mediate between competing
stakeholder concerns. Many firms have made public statements concerning these strategies.
Advertising experts argue that stakeholder analysis an effective method for uniting business
strategy with social responsibility. This approach can be used to provide a variety of business
goals with an ethical basis, and it has played a role in developing the marketing of
environmentally safe products, known as green marketing. While many environmentalists
consider this kind of analysis a step in the right direction, some have argued that public
statements of strategies can be misleading, and that companies can be more concerned with their
image and their relationship with the media than they are with social responsibility
"Stakeholder analysis." Environmental Encyclopedia. Gale, 2011. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In
Context. Web. 26 Sep. 2012.