Abstract
This article examines the development of partnerships between multinational companies (MNCs) and large nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) through voluntary product labeling schemes. First, the economics, management, and business literature are reviewed to highlight cross-checking, consistencies, and complementarities among these disciplines to identify and analyze the motives of partnering via voluntary product labeling. This analysis shows that, through such partnerships, companies and NGOs share similar objectives, viability and visibility and exchange essential resources, information and legitimacy. The development of shared goals and the complementarity of resources are the basis for successful partnerships, but they also create a phenomenon of blurred roles between companies and NGOs. Each partner enters the other’s sphere, which allows for better communication among partners, a clear and common vision of the partnership, a mutual trust, and a symmetric commitment of partners, necessary conditions for successful partnerships. However, I show that this phenomenon also leads to new risks for partners: competition, “NGO-capture”, and inconsistency.
Highlights
For the last thirty years, new constraints have been imposed on companies, including the impact of their activities on climate and local communities
The aim of this study is to explore the problem of loss of credibility that may affect sustainability labeling schemes supported by corporate–nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) partnerships
NGOs are a bridge between corporations and their other stakeholders [46], especially through the flow of information that NGOs create among these entities and the trust that they inspire
Summary
For the last thirty years, new constraints have been imposed on companies, including the impact of their activities on climate and local communities. With voluntary product labeling schemes, corporate–NGO partnerships are no longer unilateral, limited, and based purely on a financial transaction, because, with these tools, the two organizations combine their name and share risks Together, these two very different types of organizations, multinational companies (MNCs) and NGOs, play an increasingly important role in providing public goods—the former because they have resources, global reach, and levers of action, and the latter because they have legitimacy, knowledge, and expertise. In other words, using literature from different disciplines, I highlight the most important motives for developing collaborations through labeling schemes for both partners This allows me to state a hypothesis: Sustainability 2019, 11, 2689 a possible reversal of roles between corporations and NGOs. the development of shared goals, viability and visibility, and the complementarity of resources, information and legitimacy, are the basis for a successful implementation of a partnership. I conclude by summarizing the results and offering suggestions for further research
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