As the Kenyan political landscape undergoes constant transformation, I’ve found myself increasingly contemplating stakeholder engagement. Today, I focus on a coveted organizational asset: loyalty. The recent political handshake and subsequent ministerial appointments appear driven more by loyalty to party leaders than by the demands of the electorate, who yearn for transparency, accountability, and effective leadership.
Loyalty is a special attachment to an external object such as a person, institution, or policy. This attachment overweighs the devotion of self-interest of the loyalist. Pure loyalty results from a sense of obligation and has a strong emotional component that expresses social status, a sense of belonging, and identification (Behnam et al., 2021). Loyalists remain committed and attached to their object of loyalty even when faced with competing alternatives including self-interest (Abbott et al., 2021).
In an Faith Based Organizations context, loyalty is demonstrated through an individual’s behaviour such as the intention to stay with the organization, resisting the benefits offered by alternative employers, and engaging in positive word of mouth about the organization (Aboobaker et al., 2021). In a business environment, the concept of loyalty is described as customer citizenship behaviour as discussed by Chen et al., (2021). A loyal customer goes beyond the call of duty to provide feedback that helps the organization improve its products and services delivery process, help other customers, and recommend the organization’s products and services to friends or family members.
Studies have identified factors influencing loyalty including empowerment, job, enrichment, interpersonal trust, job satisfaction, work engagement, ethical leadership, and psychological fulfilment influence loyalty (Aboobaker et al., 2021). One of the recent discoveries on influencers of loyalty is the engagement that results from workplace spirituality.
This kind of engagement is associated with an individual’s experience of connectedness to their workplace which among other outcomes contributes to the personal fulfilment of the individual employee. In his empirical study that conceptualized employee loyalty as reflected in a greater commitment to stay with the organization, word of mouth about the organization, and resistance to fringe benefits offered by alternative employers, Aboobaker et al (2021) demonstrate that workplace spirituality is significantly positively related to well-being at work which in turn contributes to employee’s loyalty.
I encourage organizations to always think about their stakeholder engagement strategies because it always likely to influence the stakeholders’ involvement, participation, and loyalty (Seo et al., 2017). In his study, through focused group discussions and interviews, (Närvänen et al., 2020) found that in a business environment customers understood loyalty and its importance in different ways.
Through an inductive categorization of the data collected, he arrived at several themes as the meaning of loyalty.
- Reasoned loyalty. Here, loyalty is developed because of making informed choices based on the freedom to evaluate the available alternatives (Hirschman, 1970). If there are no alternatives, an organization may not consider a particular stakeholder loyal, it could be because of the lack of alternatives in what Franklin (2020) calls the distance between an alternative.
- Inherited loyalty “builds on meanings of nostalgia, appreciating the choices of one’s parents and following the values and customs inherited from the family” (Närvänen et al., 2020, p. 9) in this case loyalty in an organization could be inherited and not necessarily because of stakeholders’ engagement. It follows, therefore, that this kind of loyalty requires reinforcement through stakeholders’ engagement to sustain.
- Routinised loyalty is constructed from the meanings of familiarity, convenience, and safety. For example, a consistent customer for Gastro Obscura (Mutura) could be because the seller is at the entrance of his estate and therefore finds joy in buying Mutura on his way home from work.
- Compulsive loyalty has strong commitment and obligation. Stakeholders here trust the organization as the best alternative in both good and bad times.
- Identification-based loyalty is based on the meanings of togetherness and a place of belonging. In this sense, being part of a particular organization gives one a sense of pride and a feel-good feeling especially when the stakeholders see each other often in the same place repeatedly.
- Ideological loyalty results from the impact achieved through the stakeholder’s involvement. It is seen as a way of one’s expressing of their ideological beliefs and values. To achieve this loyalty, an organization should therefore seek or target stakeholders whose beliefs rhyme with the organization. There should be a clear way of communicating these ideologies to the stakeholders as well. Närvänen et al’s (2020) study derive loyalty as a relationship that involves making sacrifices and going beyond any ordinary stakeholder such as paying a higher price and providing feedback, associating with an organization in one or more aspects. There is a motivating factor that attracts the stakeholders and binds the stakeholders and the organization in a mutually beneficial relationship.
All of us engage with stakeholders in various ways. Friends and family members can be considered stakeholders. If we desire loyalty from them, we must consistently consider our engagement strategies, as they undoubtedly influence loyalty.