Responding to multiple stakeholders: affordable housing in Australia

This paper examines strategic decision making by a corporatised government body responsible for providing affordable housing in an Australian state. The organisation faces multiple stakeholders---government, treasury, the private sector, purchasers/community---each with possibly conflicting demands. The organisation's strategic decision making was analysed using a framework based on stakeholder and institutional theories. A qualitative approach using an exploratory case study was used. The results suggest that managers in this organisation, as they attempt to satisfy conflicting demands on the organisation, both acquiesce and manipulate, depending on the attributes of the disparate stakeholders. The response depends on the level of dependency of the organisation on its stakeholders, the power of the stakeholders relative to the organisation, and the consistency of the goals of the stakeholder and the organisation. The results also indicate the importance of the private sector which is at times a competitor and at times a partner, as the organisation seeks to fulfil its mandate of providing affordable housing whilst maintaining a commercial approach to its community obligations.