Identifying those on board ‘the moving train’: towards a stakeholder-focused methodology for organizational decision making.

The paper draws significantly on the proposition that the stakeholder concept is an appropriate way of acknowledging socio-political aspects of organization decision making. Stakeholder analysis is proposed as a means of reconciling organization concern for control of system outputs with potentially conflicting expectations of other stakeholder groups inside and outside the organization. The paper's hypothesis is that the incorporation of stakeholder perspectives in decision-making processes will enhance effectiveness, employee motivation and organizational justice as system outputs. The viability of the method is demonstrated by its application within a stakeholder analysis of performance management in knowledge-based organizations. Evidence from the case study, together with recent developments in systems theory and OD, is used to develop a viable systems stakeholder model of performance management that can achieve an appropriate balance between effective management, good governance and organizational justice in knowledge-based organizations of the twenty-first century. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]