Week 5 discussion response and student response. Case Study

Week 5 Case Discussion
5 Sources including the case are required
PLEASE USE THE ATTACHED CASE
This week's case is based on the Cummins case study.
Questions for this Week:
What to do with competing interests? What happens when a company is confronted with different needs and expectations from different stakeholders? How can you think about prioritizing these different, and sometimes opposing, perspectives?
PART 2
Please respond to the following discussion post, talk about what you agree with what you disagree with BACK UP YOUR RESPONSE WITH SOURCES FROM THE ATTACHED CASE STUDY OR OUTSIDE SOURCES
MUST FOLLOW APA.
Matthew Perrone
One way of unpacking this issue of competing interests is to differentiate between internal and external stakeholders involved. When there is competing interest from an internal perspective, this can be managed through transparent communication, organizational restructuring and various other management practices. When there are external stakeholders involved, managing expectations and being transparent becomes much harder.
Many for-profit enterprises (regardless if they are public or private) have two primary stakeholder groups that typically have competing interests. Group A (board of directors, CFO, controller, etc.) want the organization to grow. Managing risks is important, but ultimately they want to do whatever it takes to add financial value. Group B maintains the notion that this company has an obligation to take action in order to reduce their footprint (it could be environmental or social). Generally speaking, these two groups represent competing interests; taking action to manage and reduce your footprint includes an inherent cost to the organization, and such funds could be used elsewhere. There are two concepts that can help find the middle ground, along with a set of principles that every organization should abide by.
First is the concept of shared value. What the leadership team and employees must communicate to group A and B is the idea that there can be a way to use sustainable practices (in this case 'footprint management') as a mechanism to create financial value. This first principle requires transparent communication, but it more about reshaping the narrative to focus on the opportunity and not the cost. For example, the idea of reducing your scope 3 emissions would generally carry a cost that can come at the expense of growth, but there are many ways to use footprinting as a way to locate inefficient business practices. For example, paying more for an electric vehicle fleet can actually have a medium ROI, as opposed to using 3PLs that are coal-based and cheap. Therefore, the message to group A needs to be re-framed in a way that speaks their language and aligns to their goals and objectives (1).
The second concept is about risk management. Every firm as a certain risk tolerance. Companies are faced with tough decisions all the time about taking action or not; will a particular stance on an issue marginalize our brand in the eyes of a specific customer segment? One way around this is to employ the proper risk assessment techniques, that will enable both A and B to understand what potential outcomes can occur. In many instances, group A will be very conservative about any political, economic or social issue that could impact their customer base. However, there are techniques within risk management, including risk mapping, that can give line of sight into potential outcomes for inaction (2). Doing nothing can often be as harmful as taking a radical stance on an issue, and in some instances can be damaging to a brand. This type of scenario planning can be very helpful for convincing group A that action must be taken, but at the very least it gives a way to see the problem differently.
1. Porter, Michael, Kramer, Mark. January, 2011. Creating Shared Value. Retrieved on February 25th 2020, from https://hbr(dot)org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value (Links to an external site.).
2. Acelya EcemYildiz. March, 2014. Using Expert Opinion for Risk Assessment: A Case Study of a Construction Project Utilizing a Risk Mapping Tool. Retrieved on February 25th, 2020 from https://www(dot)sciencedirect(dot)com/science/article/pii/S1877042814021491 (Links to an external site.).
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