Stakeholder salience and standardisation: The case of the industrial internet of things

• This paper determines the salience of stakeholders in standardization organizations. • It finds that this affects success of standards. • Involving users and definitive stakeholders increases standards dominance. • Dangerous stakeholders that lack legitimacy should be avoided. New innovative systems may address societal challenges such as climate change and energy scarcity. Often, these innovative systems are realized following a set of predefined standards. Sometimes, multiple standards compete for market dominance. This paper addresses factors that affect standard competition and dominance. It investigates how the composition of standardization organizations with respect to their salience influences the success of standards by applying a refined method for identifying stakeholders and their salience. The paper contributes to the literature by providing initial evidence that stakeholder salience affects standards dominance. It appears that user engagement and the involvement of definitive stakeholders, holding power, urgency and legitimacy increases standards dominance and that avoiding dangerous stakeholders that lack legitimacy has a possible effect on standards success. These are important considerations to consider by practitioners.