ABSTRACT
All organizations depend on the support of a wide range of other organizations and individuals to achieve their goals, the most obvious ones being customers, employees and suppliers, but there are others who play a very important role. This chapter examines where the idea of a stakeholder came from and the many definitions of stakeholders and how to make a rational choice. It also explores the idea that all real stakeholders are beneficiaries and reviews these stakeholders in terms of their identity, importance and relationship with the organization. Workers were the first to exert influence with the birth of trade unions but it took a century or more for worker's rights to be enshrined in law. Customers began to influence decisions of the organization with the increase in competition, but it was not until the Western industrialists awoke to competition from Japan in the 1970s that a customer revolution emerged.
