3.4.3.3 Stakeholders as consultants in the examined CICs

Breadshare’s employees were among the key stakeholders acknowledged in the annual Breadshare CIC report. The company was found to employ fifteen employees at the time the interviews took place. The interviews and the examination of relevant documents, such as the CIC reports 2012 – 2016 of Breadshare revealed other categories of community stakeholders and beneficiaries, such as the volunteers of Breadshare, members, customers in Scotland, the local community, bread retailers and bakeries, regional social enterprise sector development organisations, and Breadshare’s suppliers of organic ingredients.

It was earlier mentioned that other than the four directors-employees, who were also members of the company and of the board, other employees and/or other groups of stakeholders did not have a participatory role in the decision- making processes of Breadshare’s governing bodies, i.e. the general meeting or in the board of directors. Formal participation through membership was not exercised by the company’s employees or by the company’s stakeholders due to inactive membership. Additionally, there was no regular consultation regarding the company’s decisions between the employees of Breadshare and the board members. The idea of developing a regular, informal and monthly staff meeting including board members was considered. However, the organisational setting of shift work did not allow for the realisation of regular meetings between board members and the employees (D interview, 10 February 2016). Accordingly, one interview respondent mentioned that ‘so one person has mentioned about maybe having a staff meeting every month or something. But then you’ve always got that issue where people want to come in on a day off, (…) But the other thing I suppose is the way the shifts work’ (D interview, 10 February 2016).

Instead, employees were consulted intensely and informally on an ad hoc basis by the board members on decisions and specific activities. An interviewee who is a director said that:

Although customers were consulted regularly regarding pending decisions, feedback was also received informally and on a regular basis concerning the type and quality of products, i.e. through personal interactions of employees and decision-makers with customers at the company’s retail outlets. In response to this informal client feedback, Breadshare introduced several new products and changes were suggested to existing products.

Additionally, the bakery attended and held informal community events, i.e. food networking meetings and bakery visits, and offered open days during which anyone interested in the company could visit and discuss any aspects of the business. Breadshare also took part in informal educational activities, e.g. visits to primary schools and other community groups that were an alternative opportunity to engage with stakeholders. Furthermore, community visitors sought to learn from the bakery, wheat and bread production activities. The community activities were organised in the form of bakery workshops. Breadshare also engaged with the community by providing opportunities for people to volunteer.

With this in mind, it can be understood that, in terms of the organisational functioning of Breadshare, a regularly informal consultation process was developed, which assisted various types of stakeholders to engage with the activities of Breadshare, while not intervening or participating in the decision-making activities. Those consultation processes were informal and regular but they were provided for direct contact with stakeholders that could safeguard the downward accountability to beneficiaries rather the formal representative participation of stakeholders in the decision-making processes.1

It was earlier mentioned that the decision-making processes of GTS Solutions’ governing bodies was not open to stakeholders. However, the decision-making process of GTS Solutions’ board of directors was structured in such a manner that it comprised a higher and a lower level. Although stakeholders could not participate in the higher level, i.e. the board meetings where directors contemplated strategic issues and synthesised their ideas in collaboration with advisors, they could do so in a lower preparatory level prior to decision-making.

The lower level required the company’s directors – prior to board meetings – to work in consultation with the company’s strategic partners (the partners which accommodate the employment and the vocational training of the disadvantaged young adults), clients (the recipients of the security services) and community stakeholders (the young disadvantaged adults who attend the company’s training). Consultation was exercised through the constant application of consultation and feedback mechanisms, on the basis of which directors sought to identify what these different stakeholder groups either demanded and/or required. As such, directors strived to understand how the company’s interests could be aligned with what stakeholder groups seek. The outcome of the consultation was presented in action plans delivered and distributed to the board members, who were in charge of directly communicating their contents to stakeholders.

Downward accountability in GTS Solutions was achieved through stakeholder consultation processes, which were standardised as stakeholder feedback mechanisms. Feedback was collected through satisfaction surveys and phone calls with clients and the company’s employees. The company collected regular (monthly) feedback from the community stakeholders, the clients and the staff (GTS Solutions annual reports of 2013 – 2016).

Furthermore, monthly feedback was also processed in the form of satisfaction surveys sent to the company’s employees. At the time the interviews took place, the company employed a workforce of approximately forty employees and a registry in which more than 100 employees with zero hour contracts were registered. These were volunteers, who preferred to work only a few hours per year. GTS Solutions collected details of the employee’s perceptions and their rates of satisfaction regarding various employment issues through regular satisfaction surveys. The monthly employee survey was developed as a regular process and it constituted a distinguished part of the company’s quality management system. The collected survey data were further compared with observational data collected by the personal interaction of the management with the employees. They were thus verified. A monthly survey was also sent to the company’s clients and strategic partners regarding their satisfaction with the offered services. The monthly surveys were standardised into a list of indicators that were reviewed by the directors of GTS Solutions on a regular quarterly basis and in consultation with its clients. Similarly, to Breadshare, GTS Solutions realised downward accountability through informal, regular and direct stakeholder mechanisms.