Classroom Companion: Business

19.3
 The Stakeholder Relationship Model
The relationships between an organization and its stakeholders are important 
aspects of its business operations. The stakeholder relationship model (SRM) iden-
tifies key stakeholders engaged in the organization’s business model and the inter-
actions that the organization has with these stakeholders. Stakeholders in the SRM 
are the organization itself, customer segments, and key partners. The customers 
and the key partners are identified and described in the BMC as explained above. 
Relationships defined in the SRM can, for instance, be exchange of assets (e.g., 
services, value, or money), formal agreements, network effects, or other dependen-
cies between the stakeholders. 
.
Figure 
19.3
 shows the notations used to visually 
model the SRM.
One key relationship between stakeholders is network effects (see 
7
Chap. 
9
). 
Network effects can either be positive or negative. The SRM models three dif-
ferent kinds of network effects between two stakeholders, A and B: (+/+), (−/−), 
and (+/−). The (+/+) network effect means that stakeholder A induces a positive 
network effect on stakeholder B and vice versa. Users in a telephone network have, 
 
Chapter 19 · Digital Business Models

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for example, a positive network effect on the other users in the network. The (−/−) 
network effect implies that stakeholder A has a negative network effect on stake-
holder B and vice versa. One example is highway traffic in which each car has a 
negative network effect on other cars on the same road because of potential traffic 
congestion and increased probability of accidents. The (+/−) network effect means 
that stakeholder A has a positive effect on stakeholder B, but stakeholder B has 
a negative effect on stakeholder A. One example is commercials on television: the 
number of viewers has a positive network effect on advertisers that want a large 
audience for the commercials, while advertisements interrupting the flow of the 
program have a negative network effect on the viewers.
The SRM supplements the BMC by visualizing the relationships between the 
organization and other stakeholders. One important purpose of the SRM, espe-
cially for businesses in the digital economy, is that it illustrates the network effects 
that may modify the competitive strength of the organization. Sometimes, these 
network effects depend on each other and induce positive feedback that adds to the 
complexity of the business model.