Which stakeholders will have the biggest impact on your company over the next few years? It may come as a surprise, but in a recent survey of nearly 1,200 executives worldwide, McKinsey & Co. found that government comes in second on that list, well behind customers but ahead of employees, investors, and other presumably important entities. Companies were evenly split as to whether government actions will have a positive (38%) or negative (34%) impact on operating income, but a solid majority (63%) expect government involvement in their industry to increase over the next three-to-five years.
As to which government actions have the greatest positive impact, providing infrastructure, services, or other public goods was viewed most favorably on a global basis, but as the chart below shows, attitudes on that and other government involvement in business vary considerably by region.