Assessing the Impact of Nonprofit Organizations on Multi-Actor Global Governance Initiatives: The Case of the UN Global Compact

Alice Hengevoss

doi:10.3390/su13136982

Abstract

This study empirically assesses the impact of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) on multi-actor global governance initiatives. Multi-actor global governance initiatives have emerged to strengthen joint action among different societal actors to tackle transnational social and environmental issues. While such initiatives have received a great deal of academic attention, previous research has primarily focused on businesses’ perspectives. In light of the important role of NPOs within such initiatives, critically addressing NPOs’ role by assessing their impact on the effectiveness of such initiatives is crucial. This article builds on the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)—the largest multi-actor global governance initiative in the world—and offers a panel analysis on a unique dataset including 820 NPOs from 68 different countries. The findings suggest that NPOs have indeed strengthened the UNGC over time, yet their engagement explains only a small fraction of differences in UNGC activity across countries. This study contributes to the emerging research on nonprofits’ social responsibility by fostering the actorhood thesis, which places higher responsibility for the impact and requirements for accountability on NPOs. Furthermore, the study supports discussions about the increasing political role of NPOs by providing the first empirical evidence for their political leadership and impact in multi-actor global governance initiatives.

Highlights

The process of globalization has provided ample opportunities for transnational economic activities but has amplified the reach and intensity of socioeconomic and environmental challenges [1]
To account for the effect of learning processes, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) local network activity was lagged by one year, such that estimates reflect the impact of nonprofit organizations (NPOs)’ engagement in a given year (t) on UNGC local network activity in the year (t + 1)
Supporting the hypothesis, these findings show that NPOs have a significant impact in strengthening local network activity, and have a significant voice and impact in global governance forums such as the UNGC

Summary

Introduction

The process of globalization has provided ample opportunities for transnational economic activities but has amplified the reach and intensity of socioeconomic and environmental challenges [1]. Goals (SDGs), and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), have emerged to promote and strengthen joint actions to address these challenges [6,7,8]. The research focus is primarily from the business actors’ perspective [5], discussing the positive impact of such initiatives on businesses’ governance mechanisms [4,8,9,10] and performance [11,12], while voicing concerns regarding the initiative’s voluntary nature [13,14]. Nonbusiness participants—NPOs in particular—are primarily mentioned as actors with a watchdog function [15,16], or as collaboration partners to strengthen businesses’ implementation of the initiatives [17]. Research evaluating the role of NPOs more critically by assessing their actual impact on these initiatives is scarce

Methods

Results

Conclusion