Stakeholder Model of Implementation of Change

A theoretical model (Lewis, 2007) I formulated helps to conceptualize the important factors that account for selections of communication strategies and the relationships that those strategies, once enacted, have with stakeholders' concerns, their interactions, and ultimately, their effects on outcomes for change. An updated version of the model is presented here (Figure 3.1) to help guide our discussion of the role of stakeholder interactions in the context of implementation of organizational change. This version of the model is somewhat different from the earlier version in the sense that it includes a variety of actors in the strategic communication portion of the model. In the earlier version, only implementers were treated as strategic communicators who design messages and communicative strategies to influence stakeholders. Consistent with Stakeholder Theory and the development in this book, I have altered the model to reflect the more accurate depiction of many possible communicators acting strategically during implementation of change. Not all stakeholder communication is reactionary.