Stakeholder is a rather fashionable term in modern business which can often be found in annual reports and company charters. Paradoxically, stakeholder has nothing to do with actually owning a stake in a company and the term should not be confused with shareholder.
According to BusinessDictionary.com, a stakeholder is a : Person, group, or organization that has direct or indirect stake in an organization because it can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives, and policies. Key stakeholders in a business organization include creditors, customers, directors, employees, government (and its agencies), owners (shareholders), suppliers, unions, and the community from which the business draws its resources. Although stake-holding is usually self-legitimizing (those who judge themselves to be stakeholders are de facto so), all stakeholders are not equal and different stakeholders are entitled to different considerations. For example, a firm's customers are entitled to fair trading practices but they are not entitled to the same consideration as the firm's employees.
