Week 1 Discussion — Who Has a Stake in the Decision? — Traditional alternative (no AI)
Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.
Hook
Every decision an organization makes lands on more people than its owners. This week you learned that a stakeholder is anyone who can affect a business or is affected by it, and that a not-for-profit answers to stakeholders too, even when no one owns it.
Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: Choose an organization you know well (a place you have worked, a team or club, or a shop you visit) and one decision it made or might make, such as changing its hours, its prices, or where it operates. Map who has a stake in that decision across the seven stakeholder groups. Which group gains the most, and which pays the most? Whose interest would you weigh most heavily, and why? Then say what someone who weighs a different group first would argue.
Option B: An illustrative community food bank, run as a not-for-profit, ends a year with a surplus. One board member wants to keep the surplus as a cushion for a hard year; another wants to spend it now on a second truck and longer hours. Which would you choose, and why? Name the stakeholders each choice helps and the ones it asks to wait, and say what the strongest case for the other choice is.
There is no single right answer. Two people can draw the same stakeholder map and still weigh the groups differently, because the weighing rests on judgment as well as on the facts. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.
Expectations
Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.
Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):
- Say which option you chose.
- For Option A, name the organization and the decision, map at least five of the seven stakeholder groups, and say whose interest you would weigh most heavily and why; for Option B, choose the cushion or the truck and longer hours, and name the stakeholders each choice helps and the ones it asks to wait.
- Use at least two of this week's terms (stakeholder, not-for-profit organization, surplus, revenue, profit) correctly.
- State the strongest case for a view you do not hold, in one or two sentences.
- Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):
- Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
- A substantive reply does more than agree: name a stakeholder group the poster left off the map, show where a post treats revenue as profit or a surplus as something a not-for-profit cannot have, or make the strongest fair case for the group or choice the poster placed last. "Good post!" on its own does not count.
What a strong post looks like:
I chose Option B and would keep most of the surplus as a cushion. The families who rely on the food bank are the customers who gain from a steady service, and the staff are employees who gain from not facing layoffs in a hard year. The neighbors who would see longer hours are asked to wait. The strongest case for the truck is that a cushion helps no one right now, while a second truck reaches families now. That is a judgment about now versus later, not a disagreement about the facts.
Notice how it names specific groups, says how each gains or waits, and states a fair case for the other side without calling it wrong. That is the bar.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.
| Criterion | Full credit | Partial credit | No credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of the initial post (4 pts) | A specific organization and decision, or a clear choice on the surplus, with named stakeholder groups, a reason for the weighing, and a fair statement of another view | A position is present, but the groups are vague or the weighing is asserted without a reason | Missing, off-topic, or no reasoning about the decision |
| Use of course concepts (3 pts) | Uses stakeholder, not-for-profit, surplus, revenue, and profit precisely, with no group swapped for another | Uses a term loosely, or treats stakeholders as owners only | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
| Engagement with peers (3 pts) | Two or more substantive replies that extend or challenge a classmate's reasoning | One substantive reply, or replies that only agree | No replies, or "I agree" with nothing added |
Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.
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