ABSTRACT
The stakeholder approach points to the wider purpose of the organization in the eyes of the various people who have some kind of stake in it. Stakeholders are not confined to just the environment either. An organization consists of many groups and subgroups which each have different ideas and interests. Different stakeholders have different stakes in the organization and therefore different expectations and ideas about what performance means to them. The obvious solution for any organization to remain legitimate among all relevant stakeholders is to meet all of their interests. A tool to deal with stakeholders is the mission statement. One thing that operating internationally adds, is that the sheer number of stakeholders and coalitions multiplies. Every country in which an organization operates comes with another set of stakeholders. Management cognition also very much feeds into cognitive legitimacy and is therefore closely intertwined with how stakeholders perceive their stake in the organization.
