Stakeholder Voices

Overview

This is lesson 14 of 20 in Strategic Business Responses. Students build on prior learning about external factors and strategic responses by analysing how a business-wide decision can affect different stakeholders, cultural relationships and community wellbeing. They refine an inquiry question so it includes relevant Māori, cultural and community perspectives.

Learning intentions

• WALT analyse how a strategic response affects diverse stakeholders.
• WALT consider cultural relationships and community perspectives when evaluating business decisions.
• WALT refine an inquiry question to include stakeholder voice and cultural context.
• WALT suggest ways a business could communicate or manage change responsibly.

Success criteria

• I can identify competing positive and negative impacts on stakeholders.
• I can explain at least one culturally responsive consideration.
• I can suggest a suitable way to communicate with stakeholders or manage change.
• I can improve my inquiry question by including relevant cultural and community perspectives.

Curriculum links

• Strategic response to external factors by a business operating in a global context.
• Applying business knowledge to address complex problems in a global business context.
• Internal factors interacting within a global business, including functions, people and management.
• New Zealand Curriculum Refresh capabilities: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and contributing to the wellbeing of people and communities.

Lesson structure (45 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Hook and retrieval. Teacher displays a strategic-response scenario, such as a global clothing business moving production overseas, using the opening scenario slide, and asks, “Who gains, who loses, and whose voice might be missing?” Students individually list two external factors and two possible stakeholders, then share with a partner.

2. 5–12 min · Teach stakeholder and cultural lenses. Teacher revisits the difference between an external factor, a stakeholder impact and a strategic response, using the stakeholder framework slides. Emphasise that a strategic response is business-wide and may affect functions, people, management, communities and the environment over different timeframes. Introduce stakeholders: employees, customers, owners, suppliers, iwi, local communities and the environment. Students annotate their notes with one likely interest or concern for each stakeholder.

Explain that culturally responsive decision-making requires genuine engagement rather than simply informing people after a decision has been made. Discuss relevant concepts such as whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga and rangatiratanga where appropriate to the context. Make clear that iwi and Māori communities are not a single viewpoint; perspectives should be confirmed through respectful consultation.

3. 12–25 min · Stakeholder voice analysis. Teacher places students in three groups of three and distributes the stakeholder voice and impact analysis sheet. Each group receives a different strategic-response scenario from the sheet and considers the included stakeholder perspectives. Students identify the intended response, record short- and long-term impacts for each stakeholder, and mark where impacts compete. They must explain one cultural or community consideration and identify what further consultation would be needed.

Use a structured protocol: one student reads the perspective, one records evidence and one asks, “Whose interests are not yet represented?” Rotate roles halfway through. Circulate and prompt students to distinguish an assumption from evidence.

4. 25–33 min · Share and challenge. Teacher uses the discussion protocol and comparison slides to facilitate a short report-back. Each group explains one trade-off, one culturally responsive action and one communication strategy. Other students listen for a missing stakeholder and ask one constructive question, such as “How might this affect mana, trust or long-term relationships?” Teacher records responses in a whole-class impact map.

5. 33–41 min · Refine inquiry questions. Teacher models improving a narrow question: “Should the business move production?” becomes “How should the business respond to rising production costs while protecting employee wellbeing, maintaining trusted relationships with suppliers and iwi, and reducing environmental harm?” Students revise their own inquiry question using the inquiry-question refinement frame. They check that the question includes a strategic response, at least two stakeholder perspectives, a cultural or community dimension, and scope for evaluation.

Students may first rehearse their question orally with a partner, write independently, or record it using a device. Invite two or three students to share a revised question and explain what they changed.

6. 41–45 min · Exit reflection. Teacher displays the plenary and exit prompt and asks students to complete a brief reflection: “One competing impact is… One culturally responsive consideration is… The business could communicate or manage change by…” Students submit the response with their refined inquiry question. Conclude by previewing that the next lesson will use evidence to compare strategic options.

Resources

• the stakeholder response slide deck
• the stakeholder voice and inquiry refinement worksheet
• Whiteboard or shared digital impact map
• Pens, highlighters and sticky notes
• Timer
• Optional headphones or text-to-speech tools
• Devices for students choosing an audio reflection

Assessment

• Listen for students distinguishing external factors, stakeholders, impacts and strategic responses during group analysis.
• Check each group’s impact map for competing effects, evidence, a culturally responsive consideration and a realistic communication or management action.
• Use the exit reflection and revised inquiry question to identify whether students can integrate stakeholder and cultural perspectives; provide feedback before the next inquiry lesson.

Differentiation

• Provide perspective prompts such as “What might this stakeholder value?”, “Who has decision-making power?” and “What could build or damage trust?”
• Use the structured discussion roles, visible sentence starters and a worked example for students who need support organising ideas.
• Offer visual stakeholder profiles, audio versions of the perspectives, text-to-speech, extra processing time and reduced-copying options for dyslexic learners.
• Accept oral, written or recorded reflections. Allow private reflection before discussion and avoid requiring students to speak from personal cultural experience.
• For extension, students evaluate how the business could create shared value by improving economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes at the same time, then justify which stakeholder relationship should be prioritised first.