Mattel Inc. has its headquarters in California, USA. The company is the largest toy manufacturing company in the world. The company’s manufacturing operation division is in China; it closed all its manufacturing subsidiaries in the USA, to reduce production costs.
Strategies to carry out stakeholder analysis in Mattel Inc. are stakeholder mapping and stakeholder audit. According to Freeman (2005, p.131), the stakeholder analysis helps an organization to determine how different levels of cooperation and threats by stakeholders affect the organization. The stakeholder mapping strategy helps to determine the level of interest and influence various stakeholders have on the organization (Bjorn, Fagerhaug, & Onseyen, 2008, p.32).
Stakeholders of Mattel Inc. include customers, employees, supplies, government, and environmental groups. Customers are primary stakeholders for they determine the strategies adopted by the organization while employees support the organization to implement the strategies adopted. On the other hand, suppliers play a critical role by providing raw material for production with the government formulating rules and regulations that govern an industry. Finally, environmental groups praise or condemn the impact of the organization’s operations on the environment.
Various stakeholders support the organization in different ways; for instance, the customers of Mattel have helped the organization achieve its profitability goals, the employees of the organization provide affordable labor necessary for the organization to achieve cost reduction strategy; the suppliers provide raw material to ensure cost reduction during production. On its part, the government has played a key role in ensuring the organization follows the prescribed rules and regulations in the industry to avoid children getting lead poisoning from their toys while the environmental groups have been condemning Mattel Inc. for environmental degradation for using packaging materials from Asia Pulp Company.
To gain stakeholder buy-in and commitment, Mattel Inc. should use different and appropriate strategies for each group of stakeholders (Weiss, 2009, p.44). Mattel Inc. should communicate to its customers through advertisement and to employees through meetings. Negotiations would be appropriate for suppliers, government, and environmental groups.
References
Bjorn, A., Fagerhaug, T., Onseyen, L. E. (2008). Mapping Work Processes. USA: ASQ Quality Press.
Freeman, E. (2005).Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. USA: Cambridge University Press.
Weiss, J. W. (2009).Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach. The USA. Cengage Learning Inc.