Political exchanges of value and the stakeholder concept: Implications for public affairs

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Robert P. Ormrod
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2084

ACADEMIC PAPER

Political exchanges of value and the stakeholder concept:

Implications for public affairs

Robert P. Ormrod

Department of Management, Aarhus BSS,

Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Correspondence

Robert P. Ormrod, Department of

Management, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University,

Aarhus, Denmark.

Email: rormrod@mgmt.au.dk

The political marketing exchange is triadic in structure, as promises given by political

actors in the context of an election campaign can only be reciprocated if 1. the politi-

cal actor is selected, 2. has influence over legislation negotiations, and 3. is in a posi-

tion to deliver on these promises. In each of these three ‘interaction marketplaces’,

political actors are indirectly influenced by stakeholders. These ‘indirect stakeholders’

are often public affairs practitioners engaged in lobbying activities in the political

sphere. This paper integrates the triadic interaction model of political marketing

exchange with the political marketing stakeholder concept and highlights how public

affairs practitioners can target their efforts for maximum benefit. This aim is moti-

vated by a need to increase our understanding of how political marketing theory can

help political actors and their stakeholders to optimise the resources that are used on

marketing activities across the electoral cycle.

1|INTRODUCTION

Advances in political marketing theory have seen the gradual

development of a number of concepts away from their origins in

the commercial marketing literature and towards an acceptance of

the idiosyncratic nature of the political marketplace (Harris & Sun,

2017; Lock & Harris, 1996; Ormrod, Henneberg, & O'Shaughnessy,

2013). The concept of exchange in the political context is one

example; instead of a dyadic exchange relationship, Henneberg and

Ormrod (2013) argue that each political exchange of value is triadic

in structure, as promises given by political actors in the context of

an election campaign can only be reciprocated if the political actor

(a) is elected, (b) has influence over the legislation formulation

negotiations, and (c) is in a position to deliver on these promises.

In each of these three “interaction marketplaces”(Henneberg &

Ormrod, 2013), political actors are indirectly influenced by stake-

holders (Ormrod, 2017). These “indirect stakeholders”are often

public affairs practitioners engaged in lobbying activities in

the political sphere (e.g., Bitoni & Harris, 2017; Brown, 2016;

De Bruycker, 2019).

The aim of this paper is to integrate Henneberg and Ormrod's

(2013) triadic interaction model of political marketing exchange with

Ormrod's (2017) political marketing stakeholder concept and to high-

light how public affairs practitioners can target their efforts for

maximum benefit. This aim is motivated by a need to incr ease our

understanding of how core concepts in political marketing theory

can help political acto rs to optimise the resour ces that are used on

marketing activitie s across the electoral cy cle, to help stakehol ders

such as commercial organi sations and lobby groups p lan their public

affairs activities to ga in the maximum of influenc e, and to help

researchers to be more s pecific when selecting which actors—

political or otherwise—to focus on as part of their empirica l investi-

gations. In this way, we hope to contribute to the literature on the

political activity of organisations (Getz, 2001).

2|THE POLITICAL EXCHANGE OF VALUE

Commercial marketing is concerned with understanding mutually ben-

eficial exchanges of value between two actors, with the fundamental

exchange possessing a dyadic structure (Bagozzi, 1975; Grönröos,

2006; Lusch & Vargo, 2006; Sheth & Uslay, 2007; Vargo & Lusch,

2004, 2008). In addition to the basic exchange dyad, some authors

have argued that each exchange is embedded within a wider system

of supporting interactions (Ford, 1980; Ford & Håkansson, 2006;

Turnbull, Ford, & Cunningham, 1996). Vargo and Lusch (2004) class

these noncustomer, supporting interactions as “indirect exchanges,”

whereas Ford and Håkansson (2006) argue that there is only one

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2084

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2084. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 1of9

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2084