A review of the state-of-the-art for stakeholder analysis with regard to environmental management and regulation

Stakeholder analysis (SA) is a widely used decision-support tool. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of SA within environmental management and regulation. In total, 48 studies from peer-reviewed literature were investigated according to 7 aspects: Topic purpose; Elements included; Geographical area; Definition key terms; Methods used; Authors self-evaluation Inclusion. We find that SAs conducted cover broad spectrum issues. The most applied data-collection methods are snowball-sampling (26 studies, 54%), interviews (30 63%) 54%). examined stakeholder attributes interests (41 85%) influence (34 71%). there lack clear definitions key-terms such as “Stakeholder” (19 40%) “Influence” (14 29%). often by authors other geographical areas than case study, which could explain why marginalised stakeholders only considered in 21 (44%). half (24 50%), reflect upon limitations biases their own analysis. Among others, three important lessons learned our study are: 1) Transparency with regard methodology, results decisions made paramount importance it otherwise undermines credibility SA; 2) “stakeholder” “influence” need be provided future avoid misunderstandings; finally, 3) Clear guidelines on how perform needed, including determine power, document report findings.