UNISA Short Course in Practical Guidelines in Building Stakeholder Relations

UNISA Short Course in Practical Guidelines in Building Stakeholder Relations

This fully online short course aims to address the need for a programme on effective stakeholder relations that is customised for the SA context by means of an integration of theoretical principles and practical guidelines for compliance to the stakeholder relationship principles of the King IV report on Corporate Governance..

The purpose of this short course is to equip individuals involved with/responsible for stakeholder relations in an organisation with the methodology to identify strategic stakeholders and to build and maintain stakeholder relationships with these stakeholders in conjunction with managing secondary stakeholder claims. Since the course is built from a South African perspective, it will further provide individuals with guidelines on how to build stakeholder relations in compliance to the King report on Corporate Governance. Since the King report is largely concerned about accounting and general governance principles, it is essential to equip individuals dealing with these aspects with knowledge and skills on stakeholder relationship management. This is a great challenge and gap in the current level of expertise of individuals in organisations having to address this aspect. In turn, communication professionals have some background in building and managing stakeholder relationships, but have little or no knowledge of the requirements and how to address the stakeholder relationship principles of the King IV report.

The short course is specifically targeted at individuals in organisations who has, as part of their mandate, the responsibility of building and maintaining stakeholder relationships or who is tasked with compliance to the stakeholder relationship principles of the King IV.The SLP is also aimed at graduates (National Diploma or Bachelor Degree) who aspire to work in a related field that would require stakeholder relationship building skills.

The credit calculation is based on the assumption that students should have:

• A National Senior Certificate and experience in corporate governance, public relations, corporate communication, investor relations or any other stakeholder relations orientated field who has, as part of their mandate in the organisation, the responsibility of building and maintaining stakeholder relationships; AND/OR

•A tertiary qualification (National Diploma or Bachelor degree)

Semester course

English

There will be two intakes for the course per year*

1st semester registration:November – mid January

2nd semester registration:April – June

Tuition starts 1 February and 1 July respectively.

Fully online

Formative: 3 assignments

Summative: e-portfolio

The module of this SLP will consist of four learning units:

UNIT 1: Theoretical basis

A two-pronged approach will be followed to theoretically define the concept ‘stakeholder’ and related stakeholder terminology: Firstly, a contextualisation from a business perspective will be provided followed by the principles of Freeman’s stakeholder theory.

UNIT 2: Stakeholder inclusivity 

The role of communication in the stakeholder relationship building process will be discussed, with specific reference to the Stockholm Accords. This topic will also make reference to various corporate communication functions that are essential in the stakeholder relationship building process, namely, issues- and crisis management; reputation management; research and knowledge management. The concept of stakeholder inclusivity will focus on engaging stakeholders in decision making according to the AA1000 SES principles.

UNIT 3: King IV: Outlining stakeholder relationship principles

This unit will specifically define, discuss and most importantly, provide guidelines on how organisations should apply / aspire to apply the stakeholder relationship principles in the King IV report.

Unit 4: Stakeholder Relationship Management Plan

This unit will be a culmination of the preceding units whereby students will be guided on devising a stakeholder relationship management plan with pragmatic relevance to their organisation / any organisation of choice

Dr Yolandi Slabbert

D Litt et Phil (Communication) (Unisa)

Department of Communication Science

Expertise : Strategic communication; corporate communication; organisation-stakeholder relationship building; crisis communication; public relations

Theo van Wijk, room 7-92

Tel: 012 429 3242

Fax: 012 429 3346

slabby@unisa.ac.za

For registration enquires please contact: