The purpose of Part II is to explain how the stakeholder concept can be built into the Strategic management process that exists in most organizations. In addition, it explores several new processes for explicitly addressing stakeholder concerns. We shall build on Part I—a stakeholder approach to Strategic management is both viable and necessary if U.S. business is to be responsive to its environment, and address the “bottom line” issue of how to be more effective.

Chapter Four, “Setting Strategic Direction,” addresses two major issues in Strategic management. The first is the role of the corporation in its larger context, or the formulation of “Enterprise Strategy.” Given the current external environment we must answer the question, “what do we stand for?” One process for answering this question, and thereby formulating Enterprise Strategy, is explained and illustrated. The second issue is the development of a process to explicitly address stakeholder concerns in the more traditional formulation of corporate level strategy, or answering “what business(es) are we in?” The Stakeholder Audit is developed as a means to help managers define their business in a way that is directly responsive to stakeholders.

Chapter Five, “Formulating Strategies for Stakeholders,” addresses the Problem of how managers can take stakeholder concerns into account when formulating programs to achieve Strategic direction. Specific strategies are developed which can be used with a variety of stakeholder groups.