The Classification and Management of Peripheral Organizational Members (POMs)

Abstract

In an age of the networked organization, individuals and groups such as employees’ family members, interactive crowds, ex-employees, and non-firm members of public-private partnerships increasingly impact firm functioning. These and other second-tier stakeholders—the stakeholders of firms’ stakeholders—represent potentially valuable firm resources but also potential threats. Our current research, conceptualizing organizational influencers as internal (‘primary’) versus external (‘secondary’) stakeholders, however, has difficulty predicting firm responses to these insider-outsider individuals and groups. In this paper, I distinguish what I call these peripheral organizational members (POMs) from primary and secondary stakeholders based on their direct access to the firm (physical, virtual/remote-based premises), power over firm stakeholders, and perceived legitimate firm representation as viewed by organizational outsiders and/or insiders. I develop a conceptual model that predicts how firms will manage their peripheral organizational members through gatekeeping, relational facilitation, (dis)association, ignoring, absorption, or exclusion tactics. Finally, I discuss how integrating POMs into management research and practice enables scholars and practitioners to better understand firm relationships with their diverse second-tier stakeholders, and these stakeholders’ role in inter-organizational networks.