For example Eden and Ackermann define stakeholders as
'People or small groups with the power to respond to, negotiate with, and change the strategic future of the organization'. Eden and Ackermann 1998:
117
Choosing Eden and Ackermann's definition would focus an organizations' attention only on people who have the power to respond to or negotiate, whereas using Freeman's definition would result in a longer list of stakeholders including those without any obvious power to impact the organization.
A stakeholder is an individual or a group that claims to have one or more stakes in an organization. Stakeholders may affect the organization and, in turn be affected by the organization's actions, policies, practices and decisions.
A person, group, or organization that has direct or indirect stake in an organization because it can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives, and policies.
Stakeholders are persons or organizations (e.g., customers, sponsors, the performing organization, or the public), who are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project.
PMI
a person with an interest or concern in something, especially a business.
A stakeholder is anybody who can affect or is affected by an organization, strategy or project. They can be internal or external and they can be at senior or junior levels.
stakeholdermap.com
Any individual, group or organization that can affect, be affected by, or perceives itself to be affected by, a programme
A person who has an interest in an organization, project, IT service etc. Stakeholders may be interested in the activities, targets, resources or deliverables. Stakeholders may include customers, partners, employees, shareholders, owners etc. [Note: see also ITIL stakeholder list]
a person such as an employee, customer or citizen who is involved with an organization, society, etc. and therefore has responsibilities towards it and an interest in its success
a person external to the Scrum Team with a specific interest in and knowledge of a product that is required for incremental discovery. Represented by the Product Owner and actively engaged with the Scrum Team at Sprint Review.
Mitchell, R., Agle, B. and Wood, D. 1997. Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts. The Academy of Management Review, 22 (4), pp. 853-886. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/259247 [Accessed: 15 June 2013].
