E‐corporate social responsibility in small non‐profit organisations: the case of Spanish ‘Non Government Organisations’

The image and the reputation of small NGOs have direct bearing on the capacity of these entities to retain and attract members, volunteers and donors. These attributes have been linked to the concept of Social Responsibility. Therefore, for NGOs to be socially responsible and to make this fact known is a key factor that will have a positive influence on their image and reputation and will contribute to their being recognised and to strengthening social confidence in them. This article analyses the e‐corporate social responsibility in Spanish NGOs. It shows the infra‐use that NGOs make of the Internet as an information medium to communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. In terms of transparency, this implies that the CSR transparency on their websites is very poor, although it grows as the size of the organisation increases.     

Maps as Coasian coordination tools: Heritage conservation and map representation

This paper is an original attempt to apply transaction cost reasoning to interpret map representation as a Coasian organizational coordination tool, the essence of Coase’s (1937) theory of the firm, in modern active heritage conservation planning by the state as a firm. It is argued that maps, which have been used by voluntary organizations to promote their causes in heritage conservation, is pivotal in reducing transaction costs of heritage identification, grading and planning, by non-market means, in contrast to the case of commercial dealings in small artifacts and relics. Two Hong Kong examples of heritage conservation by NGO mapping, one backed by government and the other recipient of a UNESCO Asia-Pacific award, are used to demonstrate this proposition in terms of twelve functions maps can serve in organisational coordination.     

An exploration of NGO and media efforts to influence workplace practices and associated accountability within global supply chains

This paper investigates how social and environmental non-government organisations (NGOs) use the news media in an endeavour to create changes in the social performance and associated accountability of multinational buying companies' (MBCs') supply chains located in a developing country such as Bangladesh. In this research, we explicitly seek the views of senior officers from global and local NGOs operating in Bangladesh, as well as the views of journalists from major global and local news media organisations. Our results show that social and environmental NGOs strategically use the news media in an effort to effect changes in corporate workplace and related disclosure practices. More particularly, both the NGOs and the news media representatives stated that NGOs would be relatively powerless to create change in corporate accountability without media coverage. This is the first known study to specifically address the joint and complementary role of NGOs and the news media in potentially creating changes in the social and environmental operating and disclosure practices of supply chains emanating from a developing country.     

环境群体性事件的发生与防范：从政企合谋到政企合作

环境群体性事件可分为事后救济型和事先预防型两种.环境群体性事件发生的诱因与一般群体性事件不同.文章利用重叠利益的解释模式来解释环境群体性事件发生的原因,认为环境群体性事件发生的直接诱因是政企合谋或民众对政企合谋的恐惧.为了预防环境群体性事件的发生,应抑制地方政府自利性的发展经济行为,企业应履行环境社会责任,民众依托环境NGO组织进行理性维权.     

Overcoming constraints of collective imagination: An inquiry into activist entrepreneuring,disruptive truth-telling and the creation of ‘possible worlds’

This article introduces ‘activist entrepreneuring’ to suggest a fresh understanding of entrepreneuring which foregrounds how constraints of imagination are removed through critical speech. Specifically, we link Michel Foucault's work on parrhesia, or courageous speech, and various literatures on (utopian) imagination to discuss ‘disruptive truth-telling’ as the generative mechanism of activist entrepreneuring whose transformative force resides in breaking free from existing limitations of collective imagination, or what we refer to as the ‘orthodox social imaginary’. We use the activist group Yes Men to develop a process model which throws into sharper relief how disruptive truth-telling is employed, on the one hand, to expose and problematize the boundaries of collective imagination, and, on the other, to create ‘possible worlds’ that prefigure ways of doing business that are consistent with broader societal interest. The three interrelated objectives of this article are: first, to make creative use of the humanities to emphasize how disruptive truth-telling actualizes possibilities for imagining future realities that seem impossible from the standpoint of dominant imagination. Second, to make the case for seeing changes of collective imagination as a genuine entrepreneurial accomplishment. And third, to identify boundary conditions that help us strengthen the explanatory power of our theorizing on disruptive truth-telling.     

Goodwill bazaar: NGO competition and giving to development

This paper builds a model of competition through fundraising between horizontally differentiated NGOs. NGOs allocate their time resource between working on the project and fundraising, which attracts private donations. If the market size is fixed, the fundraising levels increase with the number of NGOs and the free-entry equilibrium number of NGOs can be larger or smaller than the socially optimal number, depending on the efficiency of the fundraising technology. If the market size is endogenous and NGOs cooperate in attracting new donors, fundraising levels decrease with the number of NGOs and the free-entry equilibrium number of NGOs is smaller than the one that maximizes the welfare of donors and beneficiaries. If NGOs can divert funds for private use, multiple equilibria (with high diversion and no diversion of funds) appear.     

The Role of NGOs in CSR: Mutual Perceptions Among Stakeholders

This paper explores the role of NGOs in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through an analysis of various stakeholders’ perceptions and of NGOs’ self-perceptions. In the course of qualitative research based in Spain, we found that the perceptions of the role of NGOs fall into four categories: recognition of NGOs as drivers of CSR; concerns about their legitimacy; difficulties in the mutual understanding between NGOs and trade unions; the self-confidence of NGOs as important players in CSR. Each of these categories comprises the various elements analysed in the paper. We found some discrepancies between the perception of others and the self-perceptions of NGOs, which explains why their role is often controversial. The research confirms that secondary stakeholders, such as NGOs, are key players in CSR, but their role is still regarded as controversial and their legitimacy contested. Deep-seated misunderstandings and mistrust among various stakeholder groups (particularly between NGOs and trade unions) are a possible hurdle to the integration of social and environmental concerns in business activity and corporate governance in Spain. The study finds that business managers need to take a less firm-centric and a more contextual approach, and look more closely into the relationship with and among stakeholder groups. For NGO managers, the research shows that NGOs are not always aware of the stereotypes they generate and the problems caused mainly by what is seen as ambivalent roles: critic and counsellor, accuser and judge, idealist and fund raiser.

Monitoring and mapping non-governmental conservation action in Amazonia

The vast forests of Amazonia are a major focus of conservation initiatives by NGOs and governments. Nevertheless, the dynamics and geography of conservation action in this iconic region is poorly understood and, unlike scientific production, has never been systematically assessed. Here, we address this deficit through a survey of ongoing conservation NGO project sites in the Amazon region. We identified a total of 170 conservation NGOs that were implementing 378 projects at 518 sites across the breadth of the Amazon region. Project sites were associated with inhabited regions near major rivers, but away from major urban centres. In contrast to scientific research sites, there was a relatively high representation of conservation NGO project sites in the so called `arc-of-deforestation`. As anticipated, conservation project sites were often situated within protected areas. Overall, our study shows that, as a sector, conservation NGOs have successfully implemented projects throughout the Amazon region and are seemingly well-placed to meet future conservation challenges. However, given the practical difficulties we encountered while collecting the data for this project, we strongly recommend the development of an online data platform for the entire Amazon region that would allow conservationists and scientists to share information, monitor governmental and non-governmental actions, and better coordinate conservation responses in the future.