Issues Management

Issues management is a management philosophy and multidisciplinary set of strategic functions used to reduce friction and increase harmony between organizations and their stakeholders. Although the primary focus of strategic issues management (SIM) is the public policy arena, marketplace issues, including brand equity and consumer satisfaction, also are prone to become issues.

Through nearly 4 decades of analysis, SIM has come to be conceptualized around four core functions: (1) engaging in smart business and public policy planning that is sensitive to opportunities and threats of public policy trends, (2) playing tough defense and smart offense through issue communication, (3) getting the house in order by meeting or exceeding stakeholder expectations, and (4) scouting the terrain to gain early warning about troublesome issues.

Applied properly, it gives organizations the opportunity to reduce the harm of threats and to take advantage of opportunities created as public policy changes occur.

First, to be an intimate part of strategic business planning, issue managers help their senior executive colleagues look for and avoid threats while working to take advantage of issues-driven opportunities created by emerging issue trends. Second, issues managers need to cooperate systematically with other issues specialists whose insights and foresights can scan for issues, identify issues, analyze issues, and monitor their trajectory and implications for the strategic business plan of the organization. Third, issues management can help organizations to understand and work to achieve the standards of corporate responsibility in order to reduce legitimacy gaps between them and their stakeholders. Fourth, issues management entails issue communication; the voice of large organizations needs to be heard on policy issues but cannot drown the voices of critics. For the formation of societally responsible public policy, the best minds and voices need to blend to create the needed platforms of fact, value, policy, and identification.

The term issues management was coined in the 1970s in response to 1960s activism. Angry critics fought to impose their values on business and government policies and practices. Growing in number, size, and power, activist groups challenged media reporters and government officials to change business activities and policies.

This pressure to redefine the marketplace and public policy agenda caught industry off guard at a time when it thought it had reason to feel good about itself. The Great Depression had ended and the industrial might of the United States had played a major role in the victories that ended World War II. Industrial leadership went into the 1960s with high marks for ethics and honesty. Once activist scrutiny put the ethics and honesty of business leadership under the microscope, senior management's high ratings have never been the same since. Part of this slide resulted from an often quite reactive response to criticism.

In 1977, W. Howard Chase coined the term issue management, which he designated as a new science. To recommend a new kind of [Page 496]corporate planning and communication response to critics of business activities, Chase drew on his long-term corporate public relations experience, especially his tenure at American Can Company and his collegial association with other senior practitioners.

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