Stakeholders' Influence On Smoking Ban in North Sydney

The government of North Sydney announces that they plan to ban smoking in business districts. This issue attracts lots of attention from publics. Some groups agree with this ban, some of the others hold the passive attitude about it. In the following essay, the writer will define stakeholders, issues and, publics and also utilize these three elements into the public issue to make the reader easier to understand it.

According to Stieb, stakeholders could be any person, group or organization who is influenced by or can affect the execution of organizational goals. The stakeholders can be broadly divided into two categoriesinternal or external. 

• Internal stakeholders have a direct relationship with the organisations. 
• External stakeholders work indirectly with the company. 

In other words, owners, investors, shareholders, and employers belong to internal stakeholders: suppliers, creditors, the public groups as well as governments are external stakeholders. Bucholtz & Carroll claims that stakeholders are someone who maintains the stake of the organisations or someone who holds the stake in a decision. Therefore, stakeholder relationship play an significantly important role in public relation.

The smoking persons in North Sydney are part of stakeholders due to the smoking prohibition rule in the business district directly affect their benefits and restrict their rights. According to Gorrey, up to 80 percent of respondents support this rule. Not only tourists but also residents and workers at North Sydney CBD are the stakeholders, ban smoking in the public places brings the better environment, public view and the cleaner harbour for every person at here even good for people’s health. Furthermore, councilors and CBD tobacco suppliers are part of the external stakeholder. The public’s support for the councilors and the sales of CBD cigarette suppliers are indirectly affected by the policy. Graham discusses why people can wolfing super-sized orders in fast food outlets and do not be prohibited, then people cannot smoke anywhere in the public view. In a similar reason, but restrict smokers’ liberties. There are 20 percent of respondents do not satisfy with this rule, they think it affects their liberties and offends the democratisation. Although, councilors have obligations to provide better living environments for people, sometimes their opinions cannot be stand by the public which will decrease their support and affect their careers. Due to ban smoking, the demand for tobacco will be reduced which will affect the income of suppliers. Overall, ban smoking especially brings more benefits for residents and tourists such as breathing the fresh air as well as enjoying the clear public view. In this issue, it is clear to see that smoking persons, councilors, suppliers, tourists, residents which all belong to stakeholders. Without a doubt, stakeholders who are essential for the organization have enough power to affect the decisions.

Definition and Importance of Issues

There are various definitions of issues. According to Grunig & Hunt, issues could be indicated as a subject which discussed as well as argued by the small groups of people (public). However, there is another definition of issues demonstrated in Heath and suggests the legitimacy theory. Legitimacy theory explains that issues can be seen as a gap which opens up when organisations' behaviour does not meet the expectations of their stakeholders. Issues hold the key because the organisations' development and the interest of stakeholders could be influenced by them. therefore, the excellent issues management can assist organisations to overcome the dilemmas.

This issue is affecting the relationships of North Sydney councilors with smoking persons. On July, all of the North Sydney councilors supported a policy to prohibit smoking in the business district in the CBD. Ban smoking aims to execute positive social change in order to possess the fresher air, better environments, and cleaner harbor for residents and tourists. Most of the people and councilors in North Sydney support to ban smoking, but a small number of people disapprove it. Some smokers claim that it is unethical and offend the individuals' liberties if smoking is prohibited in Sydney. In addition, the policy will decline the cigarette demand then affect the revenue of suppliers. In general terms, councilors, tourists, and residents hold positive attitude during this issue. In contrast, smokers and suppliers have negative attitude toward this matter.

Councilors plan to use heavy penalties to stop people from smoking in the business district. This is important to the councilors because smoking ban is a policy that requires strong community support to achieve, but the heavy penalty strategy has caused highly emotional responses and dissatisfaction among many people. Smokers are willing to comply with the policy and try to regulate their behaviuors but heavy penalties violate the initial intention, that is absolutely unappropriated and need to concern about it.

Grunig & Repper develop a definition of public, he claims that public is a group of people who experience the same issue, then identify the topic and create a powerful organized group to execute something about it. It is also the reason why publics usually organize by some of the stakeholders when they plan to do something about the problem. Publics organized by small groups of individuals who pay attention to a common issue and have their own opinions on the problems, however, they could be employees, customers, shareholders, political leaders, even media and audience. Publics seemed as crucial to organizations because it presents people's perception of the problem and satisfaction with the matter which provide the information for organisations to deal with the facing problems. In addition, publics can easily influence the credibility and reputation of the organisations.

Public build up by the powerful group which faces the same problem or experiences a common issue. In this smoking ban case, the public developed by the smokers who disagree with the policy. Some smokers argue that they need somewhere to smoke and people have rights to prevent their behaviours from regulating. Publics, which are the groups having their judgment of topics, always honestly present the views and emotions of whether a huge group or the small one. The public and organization do not have good relationship in this issue, thus smoking ban in North Sydney still has a long way to go.

Conclusion

In this essay, the writer has discussed the definitions of stakeholders, issues, and publics as well as got deep into the importance of each of them to the organization. Besides, the writer utilized these three principles to explain the public issue: ban smoking in the CBD in North Sydney. Finally, hope the readers realize the essentiality of stakeholders, issues, and publics to organizations through this essay.

Reference

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