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The annual sessions of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women offer many opportunities for feminist social change despite challenges of access and space. Commission sessions focus on producing an outcome document, the Agreed Conclusions, that sets global norms for governmental behavior toward women and girls. Feminist advocates can influence the norms-setting process through written and oral statements, side events, briefings, and direct communications with UN member states. In addition to official meetings that are open to non-governmental organizations with accreditation to the United Nations, a parallel conference of events takes place that is open to all. The parallel conference allows feminist advocates to raise issues such as violence against women, make connections to understand the dynamics of gender inequality, promote feminist language, and learn to use UN tools to advance the well-being of women and girls. In the ferment of discussion and interaction, a global feminist collective consciousness is formed, nurtured, and promulgated. This paper will discuss the feminist origins of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, practices of Commission sessions, and limitations to non-governmental participation in the Commission negotiating process. It will offer suggestions for a more democratic United Nations that opens up sessions to feminist advocates and expands space available for Commission and non-governmental events.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of accountability as it relates to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) evolving through a period of considerable change in Sri Lanka.

An in-depth single case study of a large NGO working in Sri Lanka is presented. Data collection involved conducting semi-structured interviews with a range of NGO employees and stakeholders, undertaking participant and non-participant observation and document analysis.

This paper shows how accountability is a contested notion that is shaped by struggles among stakeholders within a field. The authors explore how the “widespread field” consisting of the aid context in Sri Lanka and internationally is rapidly shifting. This creates unique pressures within the “restricted field” of the case NGO and its constituents. These pressures are manifested in the contest between the different capitals held by various stakeholders to shape the NGO. The nature of access to these capitals is important in the way that the NGO is shaped by external forces, and also by the individuals within it.

This study adds fresh perspective to the growing body of work in NGO accountability. The paper highlights the tensions NGOs face through a holistic application of a Bourdieusian conceptual framework. The authors show how the habitus of the organisation is shaped in such a way that conceptions of accountability were captured by powerful external and internal constituencies. Ultimately, the nature of an organisation’s agency is questioned.

The authors present a more nuanced understanding of forces which shape accountability in an NGO setting which is of practical relevance to NGOs and their stakeholders. The authors highlight the struggle for an NGO to maintain its agency through resisting external forces that impact on its operations.

This study presents a comprehensive and holistic application of Bourdieu’s concepts and their interactions in an organisational setting. The struggle to harness various forms of capital in the field, shapes doxa and the habitus of NGO actors, illuminating the role of symbolic violence in the creation of an organisational identity.

The purpose of this research is to seek to understand and explain the non‐governmental organisation (NGO) and its location in civil society in order to provide a basis for future research work. The paper aims to explore and develop understandings of accountability specifically in the context of the NGO and then extend these insights to the accountability of all organisations.

The paper is framed within a theoretical conception of accountability and is primarily literature‐based. In addition secondary data relating to the issues of concern are collated and synthesised.

The research finds that the essence of accountability lies in the relationships between the organisation and the society and/or stakeholder groups of interest. The nature of this relationship allows us to infer much about the necessary formality and the channels of accountability. In turn, this casts a light upon taken‐for‐granted assumptions in the corporate accountability and reminds us that the essence and basis of success of the corporate world lies in its withdrawal from any form of human relationship and the consequential colonisation and oppression of civil society.

The principal implications relate to: our need to improve the analytical incisiveness of our applications of accountability theory; and the possibility of the accounting literature offering more developed insights to the NGO literature. The primary limitations lie in the paper in being: exploratory of a more developed understanding of accountability; and a novel excursion into the world of the NGO and civil society – neither of which feature greatly in the accounting literature.

These lie in the current political struggles between civil society and capital over appropriate forms of accountability. Corporations continue to avoid allowing themselves to be held accountable whilst civil society organisations are often accountable in many different and informal ways. Ill‐considered calls from capital for more oppressive NGO accountability are typically, therefore, hypocritical and inappropriate.

NGOs are introduced in a detailed and accessible way to the accounting literature. The concept of accountability is further developed by examination of relationships and channels in the context of the NGO and, through Rawls' notion of “closeness”, is further enriched.

This research discusses the financial perspective of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), in general, and identifies the level of dependency and diversification of revenues, in particular. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) was used as an indicator for calculating the concentration of the income for each NGO. The main sources of income reported were donations, government grants, financial income, service provision, sales and other incomes. The sample of case studies analyzed are Centre for Advanced Studies of Social and Environmental Promotion (CASSEP), Federation of Bodies for Social and Educational Assistance (FBSEA), Ecological Research Institute (ERI) and Amazon Environmental Research Institute (AERI). These organizations have been used as case studies (Yin, 2019) because they received resources from the Amazon Fund in Brazil for at least one year during the research period of 2014–2018. The composition of the revenue for this period was analyzed according to the Procedures Manual for the Third Sector published by the Federal Accounting Council of the Brazilian Accounting Foundation (FAC-BAF) and by the Association of Attorneys and Promoters of Justice of Foundations and Organizations of Social Interest from Brazil. These NGOs had low revenue diversification in the research period, so there was a high dependence on resources from international organizations, predominantly from countries in Europe. The joint analysis of the two main revenue sources – government grants and grants – substantially raises the level of dependency. As results of the empirical analysis, it can be seen that CASSEP had the highest revenue collection in the research period. This NGO maintained a high dependence and concentration of resources in all years analyzed, which points to the need of revenue diversification. This research concludes with comments on instances of competition to receive resources between NGO, which lead to an inefficient allocation of resources to all NGO. Also, it discusses the effects of COVID-19 on revenues of the NGO analyzed, as well as the recent corruption scandals in Brazil, but it is only one research that demands more study to be generalized.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of tourism-related non-governmental organization (NGO) managers on overtourism trends in Antalya, Turkey.

Focus group study was implemented and three focus group interviews were undertaken with 34 NGO managers in total as a sample. The population of the research consisted of 65 tourism-related NGO managers in Antalya.

The results of the research reveal that Antalya was perceived as neither in a tourism development stage nor afflicted by overtourism by NGO managers. NGOs are one of the major stakeholders in the tourism industry, and hence their perceptions of overtourism would probably be the stimulating force for further sustainable development in the destination.

The limitation is that the research was realized voluntarily by 34 NGOs in Antalya. It would have been better to have more volunteer respondents.

The viewpoints of stakeholders about their perceptions of tourism development in Antalya would be a helpful next step to refer back to practitioners so as to develop further strategic plans from their perspectives.

As social exchange theory states, communities benefiting from tourism development will support further improvement in tourism. Hence, in their role as spokespersons for the community, the perceptions of NGOs will influence decision-makers to draw implications from the study for wider consideration.

As a consequence, a model was proposed according to the results of the research. The findings of the research paper highlight the evolution of high-flow tourism in the destination.

This paper aims to extend some of the theoretical propositions of Michael Power’s (1997) audit society thesis by exploring the capacity of organisations to push back against external accountability pressures. The paper positions the literature on non-governmental organisation (NGO) accounting and accountability as a “case study” against which the notion of the audit society is put to the test.

A qualitative meta-synthesis of the accounting literature is used to analyse how NGOs have responded to audit society pressures – most notably funder pressures to adopt formalised accountability mechanisms. The different responses of NGOs to funder accountability demands are analysed using Christine Oliver’s (1991) typology of strategic responses to institutional processes.

This review of the accounting literature unveils that NGOs can adopt a range of strategic responses to funder accountability pressures that vary from passive conformity to proactive manipulation. The findings confirm that NGOs often perceive acquiescence to funder accountability demands as necessary to ensure organisational survival. Yet, the author also found that NGO resistance to funder accountability pressures is more common than previously assumed. Five dominant forms of “accountability resistances” emerged from the analysis: evading accountability, disguising accountability, shielding accountability, negotiating accountability and shaping accountability.

By conducting a qualitative meta-synthesis of the accounting literature, the author was able to integrate the findings of prior research on NGO resistance to funder accountability demands, guide future research and extend Michael Power’s (1997) work by developing a more nuanced understanding of how organisations respond to external accountability pressures.

The authors proposed that Organizational Compassion and Person-Organization-Fit dimensions interactively predict Discretionary Behaviours among employees in the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) sector in Uganda.

The authors employ structural equation modelling to test hypotheses. The research was carried out in two studies; the second one was done six months after the first study. Two samples of respondents were drawn from NGOs operating in West Nile and Kampala regions, respectively.

Discretionary behaviours were significantly related to the cross-sectionally assessed predictors including organizational compassion and supplementary fit. Complementary fit did not significantly predict discretionary behaviours. Both supplementary fit and complementary fit moderated the association between organizational compassion and employee discretionary behaviours among both rural and urban setting placed NGOs.

In order to boost employee exhibition of discretionary behaviours, leaders of NGOs should always endeavour to find viable organizational compassion-supplementary fit and organizational compassion-complementary fit blend that can add value to NGOs in Uganda.

This is one of the few studies that have focused on testing the interaction effects of organizational compassion and person organization fit dimensions on discretionary behaviours. These results highlight both supplementary fit and complementary fit as key individual resources that promote the effects of organization compassion on discretionary behaviours among NGO workers in Uganda.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the academic literature on non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) role in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to develop a conceptual framework.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review through an analysis of 47 papers identified from peer-reviewed academic journals published from 2002 to 2020.

Adopting social movement theory and based on thematic findings, this paper proposes four steps and six propositions in the process of NGOs fostering SSCM. These include relative deprivation, political opportunities, resource mobilization and collective action, based on which we developed a conceptual framework regarding the role of NGOs in improving sustainability in supply chains. The proposed conceptual model opens a new avenue of research in NGO literature and several directions for further research.

This study may be the first to provide a systematic review of NGOs’ role in improving sustainability in supply chains. Moreover, by borrowing the social movement theory from sociology, this paper able to propose a new conceptual framework with a research agenda so as to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon and provide directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to set out key issues in the academic study of non‐governmental organisation (NGO) accountability, and to introduce papers appearing in this special issue on NGO accountability.

This is a discussion paper exploring key issues theoretically.

The paper finds that there are many aspects of NGO accountability which should be explored in greater depth in future studies. Several other issues have been examined in the papers in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal.

There is a possibility that the issues explored in this paper, and the other papers in this special issue, will lead to a considerable growth in academic studies in this area.

The paper is a contribution to the growing debate on NGO accountability.

The paper sets an agenda for research into NGO accountability.

This paper aims to examine corporate volunteering as a form of social responsibility carried out by companies in relationships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Applying the value creation concept, the success of such relationships is based on value created between the focal company, its employees engaging in the volunteer work and the collaborating NGO actors representing the beneficiaries of the volunteer work. However, how to meaningfully engage employees and strategically manage company–NGO relationships in corporate volunteering has received less scholarly attention. The study hence asks the question: How is mutual value created in corporate volunteering collaborations between business organizations and NGOs?

Two qualitative case studies of company–NGO relationships involved in corporate volunteer programs for social benefit in Poland and Finland are analyzed.

Corporate volunteering offers value creation opportunities for each of the three actors in the relationships, namely, the company, the NGO and the employees who participate in the volunteer work. Particularly, employment and volunteering relationships appear to be catalysts for the creation of mutual value in the organizational relationship between a company and NGO.

The present study contributes to the current understanding of company–NGO relationships by emphasizing the role of individual employee volunteers in creating relationship-level value. The study adds also to existing research on corporate volunteering by identifying the way value is created in company–NGO relationships within corporate volunteering.