Stakeholder map
Strategy & decisionsField guide · Strategy & decisions · 3 of 6
Who can affect or is affected by a decision, with what power and interest?
A stakeholder map places each party with a stake in an organization or a decision on a grid, by its power along the bottom and its interest up the side, in four quadrants named for the parties each holds.
| Mark | Drawn as | Stands for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| axes | two lines at a right angle, interest up and power across, each low to high | a party’s interest in the organization or issue, and its power to affect its future | Bryson, pp. 30–31 |
| quadrants | a line across the middle of each axis | players (interest and power), subjects (interest, little power), context setters (power, little interest) and the crowd (neither) | Bryson, p. 31 |
| stakeholder | its name, written where it sits | a person, body or organization, inside the organization or outside it | Bryson, pp. 22, 31; Eden and Ackermann, §3 |
| a place that varies | a line with an arrowhead at each end through a party’s name, each end marked issue related | a party whose power and interest differ from one issue to another; not in the figure | Eden and Ackermann, Fig. 4 |
The Open University’s grid swaps the axes and names the quadrants by how each party is handled: manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed and monitor.
A line with an arrowhead
Section titled “A line with an arrowhead”No line joins two parties: a party’s place on the two axes is the whole of what the map shows about it. Eden and Ackermann draw one line with an arrowhead at each end through the media’s name, each end marked issue related, since where the media sit depends on the issue; in Bryson’s stakeholder influence diagram, drawn over the grid, lines of influence run from one party to another, each in its main direction. Neither is an effect: the first spans the places one party can take, and a line of influence joins two parties, not two quantities that rise and fall.
A wind turbine above a village
Section titled “A wind turbine above a village”England’s planning guidance on wind turbines covers noise, shadow flicker and the view for nearby residents, collision with the blades for birds and bats, and disruption to the radar that guides air traffic; local planning authorities decide schemes of 50 megawatts or less. The placings are judgements, made as in Bryson’s method, where the planning team moves each name until everyone is satisfied with its place.
When to draw one
Section titled “When to draw one”Draw one before a decision that others can help or stop: Bryson uses the grid to find whose interests and power must be taken into account, which coalitions to encourage or discourage, and whose buy-in to seek.
When not to draw one
Section titled “When not to draw one”What passes between a system and the parties outside it is a system context map’s question. Who sways whom is Bryson’s stakeholder influence diagram; who takes part in a decision, when and how, is his participation planning matrix, a table. Two or three parties are a list.
Reasoning and polish
Section titled “Reasoning and polish”- Parties placed by power and interest
- Positions, lines of influence between parties, and intended moves in power or interest
- Coalitions, conflicts, engagement strategy and change over time
Related types
Section titled “Related types”- There are parties on both: on a system context map, those outside a system’s boundary, with what passes each way across it; on a stakeholder map, those inside an organization and outside it, placed by power and interest.
Sources
Section titled “Sources”- A. L. Mendelow, “Environmental Scanning: The Impact of the Stakeholder Concept”, ICIS 1981 Proceedings, 20 (Second International Conference on Information Systems, 1981), the paper Ackermann, Eden and McKiernan name as the grid’s origin.
- John M. Bryson, “What to Do When Stakeholders Matter: Stakeholder Identification and Analysis Techniques”, Public Management Review 6, no. 1 (2004): 21–53, pp. 30–32, on the power versus interest grid after Eden and Ackermann (1998), its quadrants, how it is drawn and used, and the stakeholder influence diagram.
- Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann, “Modelling Stakeholder Dynamics for Supporting Group Decision and Negotiation: Theory to Practice”, Group Decision and Negotiation 30 (2021), §3 and Fig. 4, on internal and external stakeholders and a party whose place on the grid varies by issue.
- Fran Ackermann, Colin Eden and Peter McKiernan, “Stakeholders in Strategy Making”, Journal of Strategy and Management 17, no. 2 (2024), on Mendelow’s grid of 1981 and internal and external stakeholders.
- The Open University, Successful IT systems, §4.4, Power versus interest, on the quadrants named by handling and interest that changes over time.
- GOV.UK, Renewable and low carbon energy (planning guidance, updated 14 August 2023), paras. 002, 007, 015, 016, 018, 020, 022 and 023, for the figure’s parties, as read on 10 October 2026.