A strategic organisation-stakeholder relationship-building model: an external organisational-orientated perspective

Abstract

To fill the gap in existing literature to build organisation-stakeholder relationships (OSRs) and to expand the body of knowledge on the process of OSR-building, Slabbert (2012) developed a model that provided a partnership approach to describe the process of OSR-building with strategic stakeholders. This model was tested among in-house corporate communication professionals at JSE -listed organisations. The main aim of this article is to describe a follow-up study that further explored how the principles of this model resonate with the process of OSR-building in practice, specifically in selected South African public relations (PR) and communication agencies. By further exploring the principles of the Sequential, Integrated, Sustainable Organisation-Stakeholder Relationship model (SISOSR), this study explored whether OSR-building from a modernistic perspective is still relevant in practice or whether it resembles a postmodernistic move evident in recent academic literature. Although the findings indicate that the OSR-building process presented by Slabbert’s 2012 model is more conducive to in-house corporate communication professionals’ practices, it does tend to resonate with OSR-building in practice which could be evident of communication professionals’ slow uptake of postmodernistic approaches. The research findings were used to provide guidelines for possible amendments of the SISOSR model to align it with OSR-building in practice. This could be used as a starting point for future studies in addressing the process of stakeholder relationship building from a postmodern perspective.