Stakeholder Salience Theory Case Study

The Stakeholder Salience Theory, created by Mitchell, Agle and Wood, are based upon the combination of the three relationship attributes to generate general types of stakeholders. These attributes include: Power; Legitimacy; Urgency. “Stakeholder salience” is defined as the degree to which managers give priority to competing stakeholder claims. Therefore if a stakeholder consist of all three attributes, he/she/it will be of most importance and will have more rights and privileges than a stakeholder that consists of only one of the three attributes. As seen in the picture on the right, you can differentiate between the different types of stakeholders, according to where they get placed given the attributes they consist of. (Mitchell,

It includes anybody who can be affected by SAGF or who might have an affect on SAGF. Stakeholders of the South African Gymnastics Federation may comprise of it’s board members, staff, volunteers, participants, members, education providers, regional sports boards, sponsors, other national governing bodies, the IOC and the central government (Hoye and Cuskelly, 2007). All stakeholders have expectations of what they want SAGF to achieve, and if those expectations are not met, they do have the right to leave or disapprove of the federation.
Since Gymnastics are a non-profit organisation, SAGF are quite dependant on it’s stakeholders. Each relationship with each stakeholder will differ in importance according to the “Stakeholder Salience Theory” by Mitchell, Agle and Wood. The following stakeholders will have the following relationships with SAGF (Mitchell, Agle and Wood,

 Other national governing bodies: I would assume that they can only be dormant stakeholders, if South Africa has the need to compete against them. Otherwise it is a non-stakeholder relationship.
 IOC: This stakeholder is both powerful and legitimate, but has no urgency, therefore it is a dominant stakeholder.
 Central government: They are a dormant stakeholder, because they have the power to impose their will, but it is unused because they do not have a legitimate relationship or an urgent claim.

In terms of stakeholder salience to SAGF, they will prioritize board members, staff, volunteers, education providers, participants and members the most. Whereas other national governing bodies will be classified as the less important stakeholders. Now that we know who and what really counts, SAGF should be able to determine their governance strategies to achieve the expectations of their most important