Recipient

see also: Etymology of Recipient

A recipient ( stakeholder in English) is very actor internal or external with a company and concerned with its good performance in the field of the Responsabilité sociétale.

Let us quote for example:

for the internal actors: leaders, employees, Employed S
for the external actors:

customer S, Supplier S, intermediaries of financing (banks, managers of funds…), Insurance company,
ONG, associations, Citizen of a community - where the company carries on its activity, (residents),…
territorial collectivities, territorial or not, territorial administration of the community concerned,
Chamber of commerce and of industry (CCI),

Actionnaire S and Investisseur S ( shareholder )

The concept of recipient was born from an ethical requirement new of the Civil society, which requires that the companies give an account of the social consequences and environmental of their activity. It is in this direction that the recipients of the civil society have interests in the good performance of the company. The concept of recipient thus recovers questions of ethics, which covers the field of the ethical of the environment, of the financial ethical , and also, in certain cases, of the social ethical .

One can thus distinguish the recipients of first rank i.e. those whose company cannot occur without calling into question its operation or its survival (perenniality) and the recipients of second rank i.e. those which are not essential for the operation or the survival of the company.

Evolution of the definition

Origins

In the beginning, a “recipient” was a person to whom one entrusted a sum of money or a good while waiting to determine her rightful owner, or a third person to whom punters entrusted to them money while waiting to know gaining it.

The Tribunaux can sometimes fulfill this role while waiting to slice a Litige Propriété or while indicating, when goods are bequeathed to a child, an administrator in waiting of his majority. It is an old legal concept.

In France, the most obvious comparison is the notary or the Bailiff.

Theories of management

A theory of management ( Stakeholder view ) uses this definition: “In a corporation, the recipients are individuals and groupings which contribute, voluntarily or not, with the capacity Créer value and activity and which are its potential recipients and/or assume the Risque S of them”.

This definition varies that of Freeman which includes the competitors like “recipient” of a company.

Recent evolutions: concept of Interest

In the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of “recipient” evolved/moved to designate a person or an organization who has a legitimate Intérêt in a Projet or an entity. With regard to the decision-making processes in the Institution S, of which the large companies, the organizations of State and the Governmental organizations, the concept was widened to include whoever having a Intérêt in the actions of the entity. This includes/understands not only its distributers, its employees, and its customer S, but also the members of the commune where its offices or factories could affect the local economy or the Environnement. In this context, the “stakeholders” are not only its directors and its administrators sitting at the Board of directors or monitoring in the traditional direction of the term.

For example, in a real project of rehabilitation whose buildings are inhabited during work, the “recipients” are the residents and the neighbors undergoing of the harmful effects, the team of Gestion of the project, the landowner, the financeurs, the architect and the manufacturers.

Holding of each type of Intérêt in the businesses of the entity (the company) can gather. It can have groupings of shareholders, owners nearby, of Banques of investment, etc In this context, the grouping is a synonym of “recipient”.

Accordingly the company is regarded as a " node of Contract s" , more or less formalized, between these various Economic agents. This approach supposes that the company satisfies a certain balance between the respective Intérêt S of these various parts. Just as the various parts are supposed to respect unquestionable Intérêt S of the company. That supposes to define the shared interests (or not) between the parts, in other words to define Communautés of adequate interests.

The satisfaction of the Intérêt S of the recipients passes by a thorough analysis of the Usage S of the Information S in the trades of the company, during the exchanges with the recipients, which must be the subject of a process of Veille and economic Intelligence.

Responsibility with respect to the recipients

This type of responsibility is sometimes called Social responsibility of the companies.

The social responsibility of company is in fact the application of the principles of Sustainable development to the company. At the origin (Summit of the Earth of Rio of Rio in 1992, and Diary 21), the Sustainable development applied to the State S and the Territorial collectivities. The concept was extended to the Sommet of the Earth of Johannesburg (2002) to include the Entreprise S. The European Union published a green book to define the principles of Social responsibility (or sociétale) of the companies (RSE).

The French government (Jean-Pierre Raffarin) launched starting from 2003 an economic policy of Intelligence, which stresses the questions of Veille more than of communication.

Cabinets of lawyer S of businesses can assist the companies on the legal questions, during the negotiation large Contrat S.

Companies

In the field of the Gouvernance of company, a major debate is in hand to determine if the Entreprise must be managed in the Intérêt of the “recipients” or only of the Actionnaire S or the customer S. Those which defend the point of view of the “recipients” base their argumentation on three principal assertions:

the Création of value is stronger when its recipients are multiple. For example, according to this line of thought, a project which satisfies the needs for the employees and waitings of the shareholders has a double value because it targets at the same time, two legitimate groupings of “recipients”.
They also dispute the preeminent role granted to the Actionnaire S by a great number of economists. They argue that the financeurs, the employees and the suppliers also take Risque S in the success of a project.
These normative arguments would have little importance if the shareholders had a total control in the Gouvernance of the company.

However, much think that the Boards of directors or monitoring are with the image of the structuring of the equity capital and of the company, and real capacity of the Entreprise between the hands of the Managing directors.

In France: this country was one of the last Western countries to transform the legislation on the Gouvernance of company. Today, the law grants much less capacities to the leaders, the capacity is distributed more between the members of the Board of directors, so that the Managing director is often in the obligation to apply directives imposed not the shareholders, which generally depend on the Financial markets.

Recipients and main aims

Summary table presenting of the recipients and their Interest S or main aims:

Random links: