Stakeholder identification and salience in purchasing: an empirical study from UK hospitals

The lack of systematic processes for stakeholder identification and the omission of key stakeholders in UK hospitals cause significant delays in purchasing processes. This is reinforced by the strict tender processes that follow in making their purchases as a matter of assurance of fairness and competition. This paper presents a descriptive analysis of decision-making processes when the public hospitals purchase diagnostic equipment and it discovers how the hospitals use stakeholder identification and salience during the purchase of diagnostic equipment. With the aid of purposeful case studies and semi-structured interviews, we explore how stakeholder salience is concentrated on the administrative personnel who have the role to implement organisational policy and on technical experts who make sure that the right equipment is bought. Last, this study provides an insight into how stakeholder groups share the premises of the public hospitals' decision-making process by considering the attributes of power, urgency, legitimacy and proximity.