Stakeholder Mapping and Engagement

The main aim of the stakeholder mapping process is to consider a specific list of stakeholders, evaluate their major characteristics and present the evaluation in a manner that could assist the project team, to develop insight and understanding to support the implementation of strategic stakeholder management initiatives (Baugh, 2015). According to Bourne & Weaver (2018), successful stakeholder mapping requires a transparent and dynamic process which develops understanding about the progress of a project. It requires simplicity and flexibility in data collection and reporting about project stakeholders. The stakeholder’s circle methodology and visualization tool enhances the effectiveness of the project. The organizations that are well- equipped to invest in an appropriate system, could benefit from increased awareness among the project team members of the importance of project relationship management and provision of tools in order to achieve better understanding regarding its achievement (Bourne & Weaver, 2018).    

Forsman (2017) provided in-depth understanding about how construction organizations manage their stakeholders as well as the role of critical success factors in successful management of stakeholders. The study suggested that construction organizations must consider pre conditions at the initiation of the project, which means to managing social responsibilities such as economic, legal, environment and ethical issues. Another significant method of managing stakeholders is communication with the engaged stakeholders, in project which is essential for developing and maintaining relationship with the stakeholders engaged in the project (Forsman, 2017).  

Due to lack of comprehensive stakeholder management process, existing construction frameworks either emphasize on particular stage of construction or fail to integrate important considerations such as impact of procurement routes, internal stakeholder collaboration, and responsibility for stakeholder management as well as project lifecycle. In order to improve stakeholder management in construction projects, an all-inclusive framework that could cover entire life cycle of construction projects to direct stakeholder management process. There must be feedback mechanisms and indication procedures to track changes in stakeholder interests throughout the project. The main challenge that has been identified is the inability of the organization to have separate funds to support stakeholder management that is why; it has been recommended that financial provisions must be in place between clients and project team particularly regarding stakeholder management related issues not included in project bill. In addition, policy driven support for stakeholder management should be ensured by the government as well as relevant regulatory authorities (Molwus, 2014).   

The research conducted introduce a tool for measuring and visualizing the influence of stakeholders on managing projects found that, utilizing a standardized methodology such as Stakeholder Circle enhances the effectiveness of analysis process, which ultimately results in successful projects. In different types of projects, same stakeholder can exhibit significant differences in their characteristics. The project managers must understand the politics involved in projects in order to develop insight and capability to develop strategies to align stakeholder interests and project vision in a manner so as to reduce the potential risks represented by the stakeholders as well as those influenced by them (Bourne & Walker, 2006).       

Successful Stakeholder Management Frameworks

Community engagement can be considered as a cyclic process having various stages until the agency ceases initiated engagement. If a government agency plans to engage with the citizens and stakeholders by the use of innovative or complex technique, there is requirement of skilled and independent facilitator such as contractor or consultant as perceptions of impartiality and neutrality can be improved by this manner. When the contractor is employed to undertake community engagement activity on behalf of agency, even then, the agency retains ultimate responsibility for the development and maintenance of relationships with the citizens, stakeholders as well as communities throughout the engagement process (Muff, 2017). It is the responsibility of the agency to ensure that information provided in engagement process is accurate and feedback and follow-up processes are appropriate and effective, which requires regular and close association between contractor and agency (Queensland Government Department of Communities, 2012).        

The Stakeholder Engagement Manual includes five stages of effective stakeholder engagement. The first stage is to think strategically about the strategic business objectives, their association with stakeholders and specific issues, and how to undertake initial prioritization of stakeholders as well as issues for further analysis. The second sage is to analyse and plan different levels of engagement, existing relationships, available resources as well as organizational constraints. It helps in learning more about specific representatives of stakeholders and to decide what type of relationship is to be developed with those stakeholders. The third stage is to strengthen engagement capacities by addressing issues related to internal and external competencies and providing guidance and ensuring effective participation of all the parties. The fourth stage is to design engagement techniques suitable for specific situations and help in reaching the objectives. The fifth stage is to act, review, and report on how follow up on the outputs of engagement and ensuring stakeholders with the quality of efforts (Krick et al., 2005). 

The study conducted by Brown & Roloff (2015) investigated communicative role of apparent organizational support with psychological contracts in the fulfilment of exchange relationships and buffering burnout among the employees contributing to extra role time organizational citizenship behaviours (ERT-OCB). It was revealed after conducting the study that organizational support and psychological contract fulfilment safeguard the positive association between ERT-OCB and burnout or exhaustion (Brown & Roloff, 2015).

The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique is a form of participatory monitoring as well as evaluation. Various project stakeholders are involved in deciding changes to be recorded and in analysis of data and it occur throughout the project cycle and provide information to help people in managing the project. It provides data regarding impact and outcomes used to help in assessing the performance of entire project. Majority of organizations have identified MSC monitoring beneficial as it can better identify unexpected changes, it clearly identify the values prevalent in organization. It develops capacity of staff to analyse data and conceptualize impact (Davies & Dart, 2005).   

Community Engagement and Multicriteria Mapping

Stakeholder management is highly important for effective project development. The plans should be implemented by controlling and managing the engagement of the stakeholders. It is important to inform, work and collaborate with the stakeholders in order to increase the engagement and reduce the conflict of interest. There are different frameworks that can be used for the engagement of the stakeholders. A framework by Homes and Moir (2007) involves the identification of the stakeholders, relating stakeholders with targets of sustainability, prioritizing stakeholders, managing stakeholders, measuring performance and putting the targets into the action. This framework can help in managing the stakeholders and increasing the engagement of the stakeholders (Holmes & Moir, 2007).

A research study by Dhakal (2015) was related to approaches of the community stakeholders’ engagement in Australia, UK and Japan at the airports. It is demonstrated that the stakeholder engagement requires to involve compliance enforcement and, adopting a model can help in the decision -making process to the community stakeholders and the governance at the airports can be enhanced through ISAM framework and the expectation and the needs of the community can be managed for the sustainable development  (Dhakal et al., 2015).

The national public private partnership arrangements are considered as the method of delivering the infrastructure investment. The government of Australia is committed to infrastructure investment and delivering services in the community. It helps in economic prosperity and participation of private sector in delivering the services related to infrastructure. The national PPP guidelines help in efficient utilisation of the assets and its management as well as help in the allocation of the risks. Along with this, the guidelines aim to maximize the infrastructure procurement’s efficiency and reduce the cost of PPP procurement. The guidelines help in bringing the uniformity. PPP involves delivery of the services and the assets for a specific period of time. PPP is service focused, deliver core services and provide payment for services, helps in managing the financial discipline, focus on risk allocation and considers public interest. A balance among the private and public sector interests is represented in PPP guidelines. The some of the challenges in developing PPP are: the transactions are complex and lengthy and give rise to conflict of interest and taxation issues (Australian Government, 2008).  

In a report by Department for Communities and Local Government (2009) it is stated that Multi-Criteria Mapping (MCM) is helpful in mapping the diversity of the perspectives on issue for highlighting main features. MCM is structured and quantitative and it allows exploring the different aspects of the problems. The main benefit of Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is that it helps in demonstrating the effect to the people responsible for the process of decision- making, which contributes in presenting that stakeholders’ problems framing is different which as a result directly triggers the differences observed in preferences for the alternatives. It is important not to analyse the risks considering single perspective. MCM can help in identifying the different alternatives that can help in bearing the problem. The main focus of MCM is not to emphasize on a single option. It is important to embrace different options. Sydney airport management could have adopted this method in order to identify and implement the alternatives to deal with the problems (Department for Communities and Local Government , 2009). 

National Public-Private Partnership Arrangements

Community Liaison Implementation Plan (CLIP) help in building the support of the stakeholders, minimize the impact of the project upon the stakeholders, addressing the issues of the stakeholders and the community. It also helps in ensuring that the community and the stakeholders are able to understand the different activities, objectives, impacts, outcomes and benefits of the project and communicate in an effective manner (ISJV, 2014). In this report, the issues related to construction, social, project work and visual impacts are addressed. The effective implementation of the CLIP helped in managing project (ISJV, 2014). Hence, the use of this plan in Sydney airport runway construction would have helped in increasing the engagement of the stakeholders in an effective manner.

The stakeholder engagement is the responsibility of the staff. It is important to develop the procedures and the processes related to guiding the grievance and stakeholder engagement management in the process of construction. the engagement of the stakeholders in the work streams such as construction focused engagement, environmental and social investment focused engagement, livelihood focused engagement, grievance management, outreach engagement and participatory project monitoring are important. It is important to follow a structured approach for the purpose of the stakeholder engagement as this contributes in meeting the expectations of the stakeholders (TAP, 2014).

To achieve sustainability related targets in construction projects is considered as major performance driver. However, there are some stakeholders recognized as highly significant such as client or contractors while others are not but, their absence during decision- making might result in failure to address sustainability issues. The study conducted by Bal et al. (2013) suggested six steps for the stakeholder engagement process, which are identification, describing stakeholders to different sustainability related targets, prioritization, management, measurement of performance as well as to put targets into action. The results of the study suggested that knowledge of different sustainability plans of stakeholders and evaluating their performance by the use of key performance indicators should be emphasized in a stakeholder engagement process in order to achieve sustainability related objectives (Bal et al., 2013).

The role of stakeholders is highly significant at every stage of project execution and they have enormous impact on adequacy, appropriate execution and quality of investment projects. The most important task for developing relations of participants in construction process is factoring in the risk of all the stakeholders of the project. In huge projects with number of stakeholders, their role in the implementation of investment project can vary depending on the life cycle of project. The focus should also be on least possible risks arising from varying objectives of project and goals of stakeholders regarding the growth of correlation of measures of goals. It is essential to identify the stakeholders; however, it is continuous as well as difficult process. When the impact of specific stakeholders on the implementation of project is ignored, the duration as well as costs of project might increase so in order to establish relationship of participants in the construction process, the risk of all the project stakeholders should be taken into consideration (Bizon-Górecka & Górecki, 2017).

Previous research studies have not investigated the association between stakeholder management and corporate culture, so the research was conducted by Meding et al. (2013), to investigate its positive impact upon construction industry. It was revealed that stakeholder management and corporate culture are significant for the success of the organization. The organizations must employ ethical and social stakeholder management and should manage corporate culture in order to achieve success with better reputation and survival in the industry (Meding et al., 2013).    

The case study by Raoff (2017) revealed various issues related to stakeholder management such as lack of satisfaction among stakeholders regarding their engagement in the project as well as  lack of ability of the organizational structure for the engagement of project team. Because of non-implementation and non-evaluation of structured stakeholder management plan, stakeholders are involved and informed late during the realization phase. In addition, the needs and interests of stakeholders are not taken into consideration. In order to effectively engage asset management department as a stakeholder in the infrastructure projects, it is essential to associate the tool of stakeholder engagement with the organizational structure of both project team as well as stakeholders. Furthermore, the main correlation factors for achieving success were found to be listening to the needs and interests of stakeholders, implementing stakeholder management plan and effectual, standard as well as planned communication between the stakeholders and other parties (Raoof, 2017).     

Conclusion

The construction of new parallel runway at Sydney Airport was planned to meet the projected increases in air traffic in the 21^st century. The specific environmental impact assessment processes were taken into consideration as per the Australian Law before initiation of the project. If the project was being proposed in the present scenario, the stakeholder engagement would have been considered to be as highly significant. The stakeholder mapping should be transparent and dynamic and should involve simplicity and flexibility. The social responsibilities are also required to be managed effectively and communication with the engage stakeholders is also considered as highly essential. The framework should be all-inclusive and feedback mechanism should also be effective for which, financial provisions should be in place within the project. The utilization of Stakeholder Circle methodology also enhances the efficiency of analysis. In addition, such project managers should be employed who understand the politics involved in projects in order to develop insight and capability to develop strategies to align stakeholder interests and project vision in a manner so as to reduce the potential risks represented by the stakeholders as well as those influenced by them. The information provided in engagement process is accurate and feedback and follow-up processes should be appropriate and effective. All the five stages of effective stakeholder engagement should be followed. In addition, all the possible or potential risks associated with stakeholders should be taken into consideration. Listening to the stakeholders, implementation of stakeholders’ policy and effectual and standard and planned communication between stakeholders and other parties to the project is also essential. It is important to inform, work and collaborate with stakeholders to increase engagement and reduce conflict of interest. The framework by Homes and Moir (2007) can help in managing the stakeholders and increasing their engagement. Stakeholder engagement requires involving compliance enforcement and adopting a model can help in the decision- making process. The national PPP guidelines help in efficient utilisation of assets, its management and allocation of risks. MCM is structured and quantitative and allows exploring different aspects of problems. CLIP helps in ensuring that community and stakeholders are able to understand different activities, objectives, impacts, outcomes and benefits of project.   

References

Australian Government, 2008. National Public Private Partnership Guidelines. Australian Government.

Bal, M., Bryde, D., Fearon, D. & Ochieng, E., 2013. Stakeholder Engagement: Achieving Sustainability in the Construction Sector. Sustainability, 5, pp.695-710.

Baugh, A., 2015. Stakeholder Engagement: The Game Changer for Program Management. CRC Press.

Bizon-Górecka, J. & Górecki, J., 2017. Influence of Selected Stakeholders of Construction Investment Projects on the Course of Project. IOP Publishing Ltd.

Bourne, L. & Walker, D.H.T., 2006. Using a visualizing tool to study stakeholder influence- two Australian examples. The Project Management Journal , 37(1), pp.5-21.

Bourne, D.L. & Weaver, P., 2018. Mapping Stakeholders. In Construction Stakeholder Management. Blackwell Publishing.

Brown, L.A. & Roloff, M.E., 2015. Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Organizational Communication, and Burnout:The Buffering Role of Perceived Organizational Support and Psychological Contracts. Communication Quarterly, 63(4), pp.384-404.

Davies, R. & Dart, J., 2005. The ‘Most Significant Change’ (MSC) Technique: A Guide to Its Use. Rick Davies.

Department for Communities and Local Government , 2009. Multi-criteria analysis: a manual. Crown.

Dhakal, S.P. et al., 2015. Stakeholder engagement and asset management: a case study of the Gold Coast airport, Queensland. In Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM 2012). Switzerland, 2015. Springer International Publishing.

Forsman, P.A., 2017. A Study of Construction Project Stakeholders’ Management Methods and the Critical Success Factors Essential for Successful Management in Stockholm Region.

Holmes, S. & Moir, L., 2007. Developing a conceptual framework toidentify corporate innovations throughengagement with non-pro?t stakeholders.  Corporate Governance International Journal of Business in Society, 7(4), pp.414-22.

ISJV, 2014. North West Rail Link. ISJV.

Krick, T., Forstater, M., Monaghan, P. & Sillanpää, M., 2005. Th e Stakeholder Engagement Manual.

Meding, J.v., McAllister, K., Oyedele, L. & Kelly, K., 2013. A framework for stakeholder management and corporate culture. Built Environment Project and Asset Management, 3(1), pp.24-41.

Molwus, J.J., 2014. Stakeholder management in construction projects: A life Cycle Based Framework. Edinburgh: Heriot Watt University.

Muff, K., 2017. The Collaboratory: A Co-creative Stakeholder Engagement Process for Solving Complex Problems. Routledge.

Queensland Government Department of Communities, 2012. Engaging Queenslanders: A guide to community engagement methods and techniques. Queensland Government Department of Communities.

Raoof, L., 2017. Stakeholder Management in infrastructure projects. Master’s Thesis. Delft University of Technology.

TAP, 2014. Stakeholder Engagement Strategy. TAP.