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Background Note
| HBS Case Collection
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1989
Note on Attracting Stakeholders
by
Amar Bhide and Howard H. Stevenson
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Abstract
Acquiring resources--or to put it more broadly, attracting stakeholders--is a basic entrepreneurial task. While every enterprise needs employees, customers, suppliers, and financiers who are willing to risk their time and money, attracting these "stakeholders" to an entrepreneurial venture is a particularly difficult challenge. This note first describes the importance of the challenge and then the set of tasks the entrepreneur must work on in order to overcome it: Designing the enterprise to minimize the stakeholder investment needed, selecting the right stakeholders, and then convincing them to participate in the enterprise.
Keywords: Business Ventures;
Customers;
Entrepreneurship;
Investment;
Human Resources;
Organizational Design;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Risk and Uncertainty;