Apple Inc. is largely a successful company birthed from a simple garage room past time of a college dropout, very ambitious and innovative at that, to a universal, multi-billion, and empire. Steve Jobs is the brains behind this company. The success and sustainability of the company pivots upon the satisfaction and interests of the stakeholders, therefore the administration ought to make great efforts to protect this assemblage of parties. Apple’s organizational stakeholders include; shareholders, managers, and the work force forming internal stakeholders. Whilst the external stakeholders include; the company’s customers, its suppliers, the government, state unions of the countries in which it operates, and the general public that resulting from the company’s reputation and benefits because of the national pride associated with success.
This is also backed and recommended by several analysts, economists from ‘The Guide to Leadership Tasks and Functions’ compiled by Alessia D’Amato, Sybil Henderson, Sue Florence, who emphasize that organizations are required to vehemently take responsibility for the ways their operations impact societies and the natural environment and to apply sustainability principles to the ways in which they conduct their business.
The employees are Apple’s internal stakeholders and they have a say in what happens in the company. Steve Jobs struggled to maintain a cheerful, diligent workforce who would propel the company to great heights by such acts as granting them significant discounts for apple products. He also introduced a flattened mode of communication where the employees would not have to go through several layers of management, but could directly communicate with him. At some point, he was titled a “strategic storyteller” because he used to create analogies that had a moral lesson behind it and acted to inform the employees and stakeholders of Apple by setting a stage that provided perceptive and futuristic descriptions of how Apple would compete in different trades and respond to its macro-environment in a competitive manner.
External stakeholders include the national government, who do have a say in the company’s activities, they influence the aims of their products, and endorse what it brings to the people, and eventually reducing unemployment rate. The local government is in charge of the building plans and give permission actually built the premises. The national community are external stakeholders and don’t have a say in what happens. They influence the Apple’s aims as there would be no business without them.
There have been several complaints and lawsuits filed against Apple Inc., especially by the external stakeholders, and this eventually tarnishes the name of the company and reduce ratings, sales and their prestige. One in particular is the antitrust dispute with Adobe Flash where Apple changed its terms of service to prohibit programs that are originally written in non-Apple approved languages. This received sour criticism for being anti-competitive. Steve Jobs retaliated by posting a reaction entitled "Thoughts on Flash" which drew immediate and harsh criticism with Steve Jobs being accused of outright lying by many. Jobs' assertion that Flash is not open, or closed and proprietary, attracted a great deal of attention, but the general public came to accept these terms
In 2005, Steve Jobs and other administrators banned every book published by John Wiley & Sons from the Apple stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, “Icon” Steve Jobs. The declaration to stop the shipments to Europe regarding certain commodities was in the year 2006.These products included the non-compliant to the European Union Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive which is the e Mac series computer. This then resulted to Apple's Board of Directors and the then CEO Steve jobs suggested a vote by the various stakeholders against plans for the adoption of stronger environmental policies, such as the elimination of toxic chemicals, the consideration to eliminate toxic chemicals including substances; polyvinyl chloride then a stronger recycling program and an “e-waste” program incorporation.
Therefore, the company’s CEO presently as Tim Cook has a broader perspective and understanding his stakeholder’s interest and concerns, claims each stakeholder make, and the resulting challenges that they come with. This is because of the benefits that accompany a successful stakeholder co-operation including;
- The acceptance of recommendations since design recommendations are an important factor to the company’s project completion
- Business objectives served by design since a successful understanding of stakeholder’s perspective the resultant elucidations will tend to suit the business expectations, requirements, and goals.
- Stakeholder awareness on the project’s design methods with the objectives will create an in-depth understanding the resulting project’s result importance
Tim Cook works to ensure the challenges his organization faces in winning the stakeholders’ approval. That includes; decide on whose goals to satisfy and how rewards will be allocated against each stakeholder group.
Conclusion
Therefore, there is a direct correlation between the acceptable outcomes of what an organization has developed in form of goods and services such as the IPhone 5S series that possess incredible features and a platform for remarkable elevation in the phone market. The stakeholders both internal and external all have a contribution and their participation will be sustained by the appropriate inducements given to the preferably at a value higher than their input.
References
Lawrence, A. T., & Weber, J. (2013). Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Dess, G. G. (2012). Strategic management: Text and cases. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kossovsky, D. N., Greenberg, M., & Brandegee, R. (2012). Reputation, Stock Price, and You: Why the Market Rewards Some Companies and Punishes Others. Dordrecht: Springer.
Baker, H. E., & Paulson, S. K. (1995). Experiential exercises in organization theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall.
