Foreword

Summary

This book could not have come at a more propitious time. With the global financial meltdown, sub-prime mortgage mess, collapse of the auto sector and escalating concerns about abrupt climate change, it is clear that “business-as-usual” strategies will simply not suffice. Never has stakeholder engagement and collaboration with civil society been more important. Indeed, the twenty-first century appears to demand nothing less than a new, more inclusive approach to capitalism that promotes “mutual value” for not only companies, customers and suppliers, but also communities and the environment.

Luckily for us, Michael Yaziji and Jonathan Doh provide a welcome roadmap for how to both understand this transformation and to benefit from it competitively. In NGOs and Corporations they first explain why non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have exploded onto the scene over the past two decades. They provide a lucid model for both explaining and predicting the emergence of civil society based upon underlying conditions at the national and global level.

Next, the authors provide a classification of NGOs so as to better organize our thinking about the different strategies and types of actors, and the range of ways that corporations and NGOs interact. They make a strong case that “social” risk is now as significant strategically as “political” or “technological” risk. In so doing, they provide a model for predicting which types of firms are most likely to be the target of NGO campaigns of “delegitimation.”