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Purpose – In management literature, the influence that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can have on reforming multinational corporations' practices is traditionally depicted as significant. Few studies have emphasized the limits that NGOs face. The aim of this chapter is to:1.Describe how the positive view of NGO influence is implicitly built on a neo-Tocquevillian understanding of civil society and an explicit utilization of Habermasian ideas of civil society and communication.2.Reveal the limitations of the ability of NGOs alone to affect the negative aspects related to corporate activity and capitalism in general, building on existing critical work on civil society.

Design/methodology/approach – We review the existing mainstream literature on NGO–business relationships and compare it to the less developed body of critical research on the subject.

Findings – We found that current mainstream research on NGO–business relationships are implicitly referring to a specific positive conception of civil society believing in the power of civil society to reform society (Neo-Tocquevillian Belief).

We then propose critical alternative conceptions of civil society, to allow the development of further research in a more critical perspective, insisting on the limits of the ability of NGOs to mitigate the worst effects of neoliberalism.

Originality/value – The value of this chapter lies in the presentation of the implicit assumptions on which mainstream research on NGO–business relationships are based today. The chapter identifies possible alternative theoretical orientations for future research for doctoral students or researchers.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments are often involved with civil society organizations (CSOs) through partnerships in order to develop projects. There are valuable exchanges and adaptation experiences involved in the process that goes beyond a project’s expected outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to show how knowledge sharing in a company’s CSO partnership occurs and explain the main drivers and the kind of value that could emerge from both sides.

The authors conducted a case study and analysed it according to its contribution by depicting the main drivers to boost knowledge sharing. The authors conducted interviews and supplemented them with documents and reports.

The study revealed learning issues from corporate and CSO sides. The authors found asymmetry in management education between companies and CSO employees. This study highlights the relevance of adjusting vocabulary to promote knowledge sharing benefits in partnerships. The presence of a “third party” in the partnership successfully helped management understand the importance of adjusting vocabulary to ease the project lifecycle flow.

The authors demonstrate how knowledge sharing as a CSR outcome improves managerial knowledge and boosts CSOs to seek opportunities for greater cooperation. The partnering possibilities become more apparent as a CSO learns how to deal with business, understands its vocabulary, context and interests. Additionally, corporate organizational learning relies on more knowledge about how CSOs operate and more information about the local community. Knowledge sharing efforts improve an organization’s commitment to develop social projects and improve the impact and legitimacy of CSR.

Owing to the changing roles of business enterprises in social life, the term “corporate social responsibilty” has received growing interest both in the related literature and in practical applications. Although the framework of the term is still debatable, it is acknowledged that the issues involved in the concept have significant functions for society as a whole and for the business enterprises involved.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the agri-food sector are continuously transforming their global value chains (GVCs) to address sustainable development challenges of food security (SDG2) and climate change (SDG13). However, the central role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in (re)creating GVCs across multilevel stakeholders through innovative approaches to solve sustainability challenges remains under investigated. This explorative study investigates how international NGOs influence the transformation of large-scale industrial animal agriculture to a more sustainable (cell-based) agri-food GVC. The authors conducted a case study on the Good Food Institute (GFI), an international NGO, that has been an active player in the transition to alternative sources of protein to solve animal-based agriculture sustainability issues. The results show that an international NGO can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable GVC and can enhance the GVC’s innovation capabilities.

To extend humanitarian supply chain relationships beyond logistics concerns of delivery, quality and cost. As humanitarian actors continue to face increasing numbers of natural disasters, armed conflicts and attacks on aid workers, security (risk) and sustainability are issues of growing importance. Aiming to inspire discussion, the paper concludes with a research agenda.

This is a conceptual paper inspired by relevant statistics, news reports and academic literature.

Worldwide natural disasters and armed conflicts are on the rise. So are deliberate attacks on aid workers. Thus, humanitarian supply chain design must include considerations of security and sustainability. Agencies have several options for integrating matters of security and sustainability with the delivery of aid, from being reactive to creating internal solutions to forming proactive relationships with security and sustainability experts.

There are numerous opportunities for research in the areas of security, sustainability and supply chain relationships.

Through advocacy and supply chain relationships, humanitarian agencies can enhance security for aid workers and civilians affected by conflict and disasters. Looking to the future, they can also make a positive difference on issues of sustainability.

There is an opportunity to enlarge the “humanitarian space” – and increase security for aid workers and civilians, especially in areas of armed conflict. In the long term, aid agencies can also help eliminate social problems such as gender inequality.

This appears to be among the first papers to discuss matters of security and sustainability in the context of humanitarian supply chain collaboration.

Drawing on paradox theory and the category of the “performing-organizing” paradox, the study investigates the tensions firms experience in the context of organizing the processes involved in managing their indirect GHG emissions.

The authors develop hypotheses to explain why the paradox elements of supply chain transparency and supply chain coordination affect firms' ability to reduce their indirect supply chains GHG emissions. Using a two-stage method based on data from Refinitiv and CDP for 2002 to 2021, the authors test this study’s hypotheses through panel regression analyses.

While greater transparency experience with scope 3 emissions disclosure, GSCM practices and broader supply chain engagement are all associated with higher levels of scope 3 emissions levels, both long-term transparency experience and GSCM practices are also associated with relative reductions in scope 3 emissions over time.

Given growing pressures on firms to demonstrate both transparency and legitimacy regarding their scope 3 emissions, firms must understand the characteristics of this paradox as this has implications for how emissions performance is perceived and managed. This study's results suggested that firms need to take both a long-term perspective and effectively communicate the differences involved in reporting their emissions performance to avoid unwarranted criticism.

Filling a gap in sustainable OSCM studies by providing large-scale quantitative insights into the relationships between organizing and performing, the authors demonstrate that the processes involved in firms' efforts of measuring and managing their indirect scope 3 emissions are paradoxically affected by whether performance outcomes are specified as annual absolute levels of scope 3 emissions, or relative changes over time.

Humanitarian organizations have faced the unprecedented consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this article, the authors therefore discuss how epidemics and pandemics, specifically Ebola and COVID-19, have affected humanitarian operations and supply chain management (HumOSCM), and how HumOSCM has contributed to preparedness for and response to epidemics and pandemics. The authors present lessons learned from responses to Ebola and COVID-19.

For this study, the authors review the scholarly HumOSCM literature, use documentary evidence from practitioner literature and apply a theory synthesis approach to derive recommendations on how HumOSCM could strengthen future responses to epidemics and pandemics.

The conceptualizations highlight the importance of strengthening collaboration, capability and capacity for the response to epidemics and pandemics. Furthermore, the components that can enhance the degree of collaboration, and hence, response formation, are discussed.

As a non-empirical article, it suffers from the limitations of conceptual research. Hence, empirical testing of the proposed framework is recommended. The framework and propositions can serve as a basis for future studies.

The conceptual framework can help humanitarian organizations and other actors in the humanitarian sector to better understand how to prepare for future responses to epidemics and pandemics, in particular by considering the components that enhance the degree of collaboration, as well as through capability development and capacity building.

This article begins a discussion of how HumOSCM should evolve to better respond to future epidemics and pandemics.

Social innovation has been attracting attention in the literature and the practice field due to its intention to create social value. However, the social innovation process is still poorly studied and is marked by several disagreements in the existing models, often built from data coming from developed countries. So, the focus of this study is to answer the following research question: how is the social innovation process configured in a developing context?

The study investigated three cases of Brazilian social innovation processes through a qualitative approach. The authors also use the institutional levels perspectives to analyse the cases.

The main findings indicate that the social innovation process comprises five phases and occurs between the micro, meso and macro institutional levels. Besides, the social innovation process relies on the participation of different partners, in a non-sequential process, with the possibility of returning from one stage to another and is evaluated continuously over time.

This study may be useful for social entrepreneurs and their teams in organisations that generate social innovations (such as social enterprises) to understand how well-established initiatives have organised themselves over time. Public policymakers may also use the insights provided to create more favourable environments to create new social innovation initiatives and expand the existing ones.

The characteristics of the social innovation process revealed in this study contributes to the advancement of the area, mainly because it considers the perspective of institutional levels and is based on data from a developing country.

The changing role of the business community in addressing the widening gap between rich and poor is an area that has received increasing attention within the fields of development studies and beyond. New forms of hybrid enterprise such as fair trade organisations, social enterprises and NGO‐business partnerships have demonstrated the potential of creating synergies between traditional enterprise motivations and more social concerns, and also their pitfalls. This paper examines a global network of one group of socially oriented enterprises that emerged in the 1990s: the Economy of Sharing. It examines whether this global network involving the business community and civil society organisations could offer a new approach to rebalancing the relationship between wealth creation and distribution in a globalised world.

Based on the findings in earlier research of the importance of relationships in general, and relationships to social actors in particular to explain innovation processes in emerging economies, the aim of the paper is to reach a better understanding of the mechanisms behind innovations in these economies. This has been accomplished through an investigation of an innovation process and the relationships between two business firms and a NGO that were central for its progression. Theoretically the study is constructed on the concepts of trust, commitment and cultural capability in long and short-term relationships as discussed in business network theory and theory on discontinuous innovation. A case study method is used and the social innovation project ‘Connexão Belterra’ that enabled connectivity in the distant Amazon region of Pará, Brazil, was investigated.