University Stakeholders: Identification and Classification by Importan ce

With the objective of classifying university stakeholders by order of importance, this research project follows the core concepts and principles of Stakeholder Theory. The Stakeholder Salience model represented the foundation of an empirical study involving members of staff at eleven Portuguese state universities. Following the identification of twenty-one university stakeholders by means of exploratory research, we set out a questionnaire that was sent off to all staff at these universities. We had obtained 684 valid responses. The Stakeholder Salience model was deployed even though significant limitations to this approach were encountered. Thus, we put forward a new model designed to ascertain the importance of organisational stakeholders based exclusively on their respective influence. By the end, we were able to conclude that government and academics bear more influence than the market at the universities studied.