Final answer:
The term 'stakeholders' (option a) refers to individuals or groups affected by a company's decisions, including a broad range of parties such as employees, customers, and the community, not just shareholders who own parts of the corporation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The people affected by decisions made by a company, including investors, creditors, employees, managers, regulators, customers, suppliers, and laypeople, are known as stakeholders. The term shareholders refers to a more specific group of individuals or entities that own shares in a corporation and thus have a vested financial interest.
Shareholders are part of the broader category of stakeholders, but stakeholders also include anyone else who is impacted by the company's operations and decisions, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and the community at large. A stakeholder in a business context is anyone with an interest in or who may be affected by a company's actions and decisions, making this term encompass a wide range of involved parties.