Mitchell, Agle & Wood Typology Questions

Using Mitchell, Agle & Wood typology, how would you categorize the Earth Liberation Front as a stakeholder?

One of the main ideas behind the Mitchell, Agle and Wood typology is to define the stakeholder attributes in the context of Power, Legitimacy and Urgency. Relative to those attributes, I would describe the ELF the following way:

Power – they leveraged this definition of power: “the probability that one actor within a social relationship would be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance”. Initially, it wouldn’t appear that the ELF would have much power because the expansion was legal and Vail appeared to be clearing the necessary hurdles. In retrospect however, ELF did have power to do significant damage to the resort.

Legitimacy – the most accurate definition provided is “a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions”. While the ELF’s desires were socially acceptable, their actions would not have been.

Urgency – I would argue urgency is in the eye of the beholder. There’s no doubt that the ELF saw this as a battle they cared deeply about, and they were losing on multiple fronts. Therefore, their level of urgency increased more and more as the expansion became more and more inevitable.

The article also discussed the idea of stakeholder classes. In this they identified a class as “Dangerous Stakeholders” which were characterized as having power and urgency, but no legitimacy. This pretty aptly describes the ELF in the scenario.

What are the lessons we learn from this crisis management response to prevent future disasters that could be initiated by radical groups?

The primary lesson I pulled out of the reading and the video in regards to preventing future disasters initiated by radical groups is open communication and awareness of stakeholders.

It’s hard to totally ascertain...