eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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This thesis focuses on the study of the stakeholder relations of PHAST Ujenzi, a community-based organization (CBO) that provides sanitation services in a slum area of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. My research aims at describing how this CBO has established and maintained relations with different stakeholders, and it looks for highlighting interests, benefits, and challenges in such collaborations. Additionally, my study aims at contributing to the Stakeholder Theory literature, by providing relevant information on how Non Profit Organizations, in particular CBOs, build up relations and collaborate with different stakeholders. Thus, I will revise the main ideas proposed by stakeholder theory concerning the stakeholder concept, stakeholder salience, and stakeholder management, and I will analyze to which extent these ideas can be applied when studying the stakeholder relationships of a CBO.

In order to address the questions of this research, I make use of literature on stakeholder theory and on CBOs. The main research approach of this thesis is qualitative case study research by taking a single case study as unit of analysis. In addition, this study takes elements of the action research approach, as I have close relationship with the researched organization and my study might bring up certain actions and practices that could be implemented later on. In this thesis, I used two methods for collection of data. I collected data through in-depth semi-structured interviews carried out with members of the CBO and current stakeholders. In addition, I took field notes through participant observation in most relevant meetings/workshops where CBO and other actors interacted.

This study revealed that PHAST Ujenzi is a CBO that emerged with the participation and support of different actors such as local authorities, community, and a local NGO who instantly became stakeholders. Currently, the group has direct and indirect relations with local CBOs/NGOs, suppliers, international donors and organizations, and media. By analyzing these CBO's stakeholder relations, it was possible to conclude that in some cases, stakeholder theory can serve to examine the stakeholder relationships of a CBO, even though this literature stream focuses mainly on business corporations. For example, similar than in businesses, a CBO would find it useful to relate with stakeholders because this might bring more organizational flexibility, more impactful products and services, and less probability of negative actions triggered by outsiders. In addition, attributes to identify salience of stakeholders (power, legitimacy, and urgency) and stakeholder management techniques such as bridging can also be relevant for CBOs. Nevertheless, some stakeholder theory elements should take into account CBOs' reality. For instance, CBO stakeholder models for identifying and for assessing salience might differ from the models proposed for corporations. Moreover, reasons that explain why to engage with stakeholders such as profit maximization and less competition are not as relevant when talking about CBOs. Finally, CBOs' stakeholder relations are strongly influenced by values and moral commandments since the moment they are established, which might not be the case for several business corporations.