Origins and definitions: The word “stakeholder” was first recorded in 1708 as “a person who holds the stake or stakes in a bet”; the current definition is “a person with an interest or concern in something” (Bisset, personal communication, 19981). Freeman (1984, p. vi) defines a stakeholder as “any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of a corporation’s purpose.” In the context of natural resource management, however, Röling and Wagemakers (1998, p. 7) offer a more appropriate definition: “Stakeholders are … natural resource users and managers.”

Other terms are used interchangeably with stakeholder in colloquial language, but with slightly different connotations. For example, systems analysts refer to an “actor” as “a person who carries out one or more of the activities in the system” (Checkland 1981, p. 312); sociologists talk about “social actors” as individuals or social entities who are knowledgeable and capable (Long 1992) and can thus formulate and defend decisions (Hindess 1986). One recent article (Mitchell et al. 1997) lists 27 definitions of “stakeholder” in the business literature, and many more are proposed in natural resource management fields. What is relevant here is that modern uses of the term are not synonymous with persons or individuals only but also refer to groups and organizations that have an interest or are active players in a system.

Origin Of Stakeholder

It comes from the pioneering days when people would mark out their property with stakes. Same as “stake your claim.”