Multi-stakeholder Initiatives Research Articles

Using a perception matrix to elicit farmers‘ perceptions towards stakeholders in the context of biodiversity-friendly farming

Farmers’ pro-environmental action is substantially influenced by various stakeholders from their business and social environment. Recent studies recommend actively involving influential stakeholders in agri-environmental initiatives, information or media campaigns. While it has been argued that farmers’ perceptions towards these stakeholders can help inform effective involvement, comprehensive assessments of these perceptions remain scarce, particularly in the context of biodiversity-friendly farming. To understand and compare farmers’ perceptions of these stakeholder quantitatively, we developed and applied a perception matrix. In an exploratory survey with 49 farmers across ten European countries, farmers rated twelve groups of stakeholders (e.g. government bodies, farm advisors and input suppliers) against eight perception constructs (e.g. trustworthiness, interest in protecting biodiversity). We found that perceptions differed significantly both between groups of stakeholders and between constructs. Whereas several stakeholders were, on average, perceived positively regarding their general characteristics, such as trustworthiness, reliability, understanding and support for farming, perceptions regarding their biodiversity-related behavior were significantly more negative. Our findings indicate potential to improve policy development and implementation of agri-environmental initiatives through the involvement of multiple, non-governmental, agricultural and non-agricultural stakeholders in biodiversity-friendly farming initiatives across the entire agri-food value chain. Such multi-stakeholder initiatives could help to not only reinforce biodiversity conservation action among the farming community, but across society as a whole as emphasized by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Further research is needed to confirm the observed trends on a larger, representative sample, for which the presented perception matrix is well suited.

Sustainable and Healthy Gastronomy in Costa Rica – Betting on Sustainable Diets

Abstract Current consumption patterns in Costa Rica, and other countries, are often driven by misinformation and lack of knowledge about the nutritional value and sustainability of food products, which leads to unhealthy diets and loss of food biodiversity. In 2012, Costa Rica launched a multi-stakeholder initiative, The National Plan on Healthy and Sustainable Gastronomy (hereafter referred to as the Plan), to reverse this trend. Healthy and Sustainable Gastronomy (HSG) is an innovative paradigm for the sustainability of natural resources based on the consumers’ decision to prepare and enjoy food to be healthy. It is one of various approaches and solutions provided by One Planet Network, which hosts the UN Sustainable Food Systems Programme. Costa Rica’s Plan promotes a new healthy and sustainable national cuisine as a driving force to create a sustainable food system and improve the health of the population through diet. The cuisine is designed to increase the use of local, traditional and plant-based foods and aims to reduce obesity and micronutrient deficiencies. Additional benefits are food security, increased food biodiversity and tourism through gastronomic food culture. This case study explains the concept of HSG and how Costa Rica implemented it to change consumer behaviour; support local producers; achieve national goals for sustainable development; promote tourism and improve population health. Important progress has been made, but lack of information and awareness about linkages connecting food production and consumption is a major barrier. Information challenges include a lack of traceability systems and eco-labelling to build consumer trust, ongoing consumer education, and ensuring production will satisfy demand. Overall, the authors believe that Costa Rica will act as a model of HSG for other countries to follow in order to achieve sustainable food production and consumption, bridging the gap between emerging markets and Western economies. Information © CAB International 2019

Liberalization and Global Business Dilemma in Third World Countries: A PEST Analysis

Global business plays a critical role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set forth by the United Nations. The SDGs represent a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by 2030. Global businesses collaborate with governments, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders to address complex global challenges and achieve the SDGs. By fostering partnerships and multi-stakeholder initiatives, they contribute to SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) by leveraging resources, expertise, and networks to drive sustainable development. Many global businesses are increasingly adopting sustainable practices to minimize their environmental footprint and promote responsible consumption and production. By implementing sustainable supply chain management, reducing waste, and adopting eco-friendly technologies, they contribute to SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). Liberalization and global business are interrelated processes that shape the dynamics of international trade, investment, and economic integration. While liberalization creates opportunities for global businesses to expand their operations and access new markets, it also presents challenges related to competition, regulation, and sustainability that require careful management and policy responses in third world countries. This has elicited a mixed rection on the role of global business on development of nations. Based on this, the purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which liberalization has impacted the political, economic, social, and technological advancement of third world countries. A literature review has been adopted for this purpose. The study concludes that the impact of liberalization of global business on third world countries is complex and varies depending on factors such as governance structures, economic policies, social dynamics, and technological capabilities. This study recommends that by adopting a holistic approach that takes into account the interplay between political, economic, social, and technological factors, governments in third world countries can maximize the benefits of liberalization while mitigating potential risks and promoting sustainable development.

Institutional work within the boundaries of multi-stakeholder initiatives: The relational agency of implementing partners and women cotton-pickers in practice change

In Pakistan, cotton is picked by women who witness first-hand the social and environmental challenges of the global textile industry, which the BCI, a multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI), aims to mitigate. Scholars have yet to investigate the ability of MSIs to achieve change as experienced by the cotton-pickers themselves. This article offers an original perspective on how relational agency is exerted between an MSI, implementing partners and cotton-pickers, through the mutually interacting work of creating boundaries around an institutional space. This helps explain how, in an otherwise highly restrictive context, women’s agency is leveraged. Based on 40 qualitative interviews with the BCI cotton-pickers and their implementing partners, the study finds that, through institutional work, cotton-pickers have upgraded their working practices. However, the MSI’s impact depends on its ability to maintain its boundary and corresponding practices. By implication, the women’s poverty continues to be a highly significant limitation on the improvements to their lives.

NGOs and Global Business Regulation of Transnational Alcohol and Ultra-Processed Food Industries

Abstract The intensification of efforts by state and nonstate actors to address issues affecting global health has produced a patchwork of transnational regulatory governance. Within this field, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are expected to perform authoritative roles in holding business actors to account and enhance the democratic legitimacy of institutions via their participation in governance processes. While there exists a large body of conceptual and empirical research on global business regulation and private authority, we surprisingly know little about the governance functions of NGOs engaged in influencing the practices of corporations that produce health-harming commodities. This knowledge gap is especially pronounced in the issue area of noncommunicable diseases. This article begins to address this gap by mapping the networks of NGOs that engage in regulatory activities (rule-setting, monitoring, and enforcement) related to the (ultra)processed food and alcohol industries. We identify the networks of NGOs involved in global policy making across health, regulatory standards, and multistakeholder initiatives using nonstate actor submissions to consultations held by World Health Organization, UN Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), and the UN Global Compact. This paper examines NGO governance functions and their patterns of engagement and participation across institutional spheres. Overall, the article makes a twofold contribution to existing debates. First, we identify the governance functions through which NGOs attempt to hold corporations to account, contrasting their “watchdog” function with other governance functions. Second, we examine the representation of NGOs, highlighting asymmetries in participation of NGOs in the Global North and South.

Building Common Ground: How Facilitators Bridge Between Diverging Groups in Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue

AbstractThe effectiveness of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in tackling grand social and environmental challenges depends on productive dialogue among diverse parties. Facilitating such dialogue in turn entails building common ground in form of joint knowledge, beliefs, and suppositions. To explore how such common ground can be built, we study the role of different facilitators and their strategies for bridging the perspectives of competing stakeholder groups in two contrasting MSIs. The German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles was launched in an initially hostile communicative environment, whereas the Fossil Free Sweden Initiative proceeded in a fertile communicative environment. We trace how the facilitators in these initiatives achieved common ground through three bridging strategies—communicative integration, temporal calibration, and process alignment—adapted to the communicative environments of these MSIs. In hostile communicative environments, facilitators achieve common ground by steering diverging stakeholder groups towards ‘reconciling’ their different language registers, knowledge bases, and meaning systems to ‘meet in the middle’ on points of agreement and shared interests. In fertile communicative environments characterised by greater mutual trust, facilitators can steer interactants to ‘strategically appropriate’ to the language, knowledge, and meaning system of a particular stakeholder group to win this group’s support. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of how productive multi-stakeholder dialogue can be facilitated.

Power asymmetry and Incentives: A practical approach to corporate commitments in multi-stakeholder initiative.

Du fait de l’asymétrie de pouvoir et des antagonismes dans les initiatives multipartites, les engagements des entreprises sont des facteurs essentiels pour promouvoir les objectifs institutionnels de durabilité. Cette étude mobilise la théorie de la dépendance du pouvoir pour mettre en évidence les types d’incitations utilisées dans les initiatives multipartites ; il démontre également comment les membres utilisent ces incitations pour favoriser les engagements des entreprises. OrbiMob – une initiative multipartite à Clermont-Ferrand (France) - constitue le cas central de cet article. Parmi ces incitations figurent : le partage de problèmes et d’ambitions communs, l’obtention d’un statut spécial, la reconnaissance de l’indispensabilité des parties prenantes puissantes et la présence d’un facilitateur charismatique. Cette étude contribue à élargir les connaissances sur les initiatives multipartites, en démontrant comment les acteurs utilisent des incitations pour favoriser l’engagement des acteurs puissants dans une gouvernance collaborative déséquilibrée. Elle offre un cadre qui permet aux chercheurs et aux praticiens de repenser leur approche en matière de promotion des engagements des entreprises dans un contexte d’asymétrie de pouvoir. Elle contribue également à la littérature sur la dépendance au pouvoir en affirmant la nécessité d’accorder un statut spécial à certains membres importants et en reconnaissant leur indispensabilité.

The role of multi‐stakeholder initiatives in advancing circularity and social sustainability in the textiles sector of Bangladesh

AbstractThe global north is garnering multi‐stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) for circular textiles. Past MSIs however have yielded less‐than‐satisfactory social sustainability outcomes in Bangladesh. So this article asks, what impact has textiles MSIs have had on the sustainability transformation of the textiles chain in Bangladesh? And how can policymakers accelerate this transition to a circular economy? Fieldwork finds circularity issues are advancing at different rates because the industry transformation is suffering from lack of attention, motivation, knowledge, relationships, and resources at the micro‐level, and a lack of strategic alignment, structural flexibility, and routine rigidity, between MSI stakeholders, at the meso and macro levels. The article then discusses the role of MSIs in restructuring the global textiles industry and offers a five‐pronged approach to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.

Contesting corporate responsibility in the Bangladesh garment industry: The local factory owner perspective

In the developing economy of Bangladesh, local factory owners in the garment industry have felt great pressure to improve factory safety, but the costs for those improvements are not shared by the global apparel firms that wield immense influence over them. Consequently, we examine whether multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), as vehicles of corporate social responsibility (CSR), offer platforms for democratic oversight or merely serve as new arenas to exercise corporate power. Given their role in connecting global and local contexts and their history of safety incidents, local factory owners possess a unique perspective on the impact and contested nature of CSR in global supply chains. This article presents a qualitative study of MSIs in the Bangladesh garment industry, particularly after the Rana Plaza collapse. Through interviews with local factory owners and executive managers, we explore the reasons behind their opposition to CSR as exercised by global apparel firms, and the contestation of those practices by their local business association. Our findings lead us to conclude that garment industry MSIs are unlikely to be effective without labor procurement practices that harmonize global and local interests to mitigate the competitive pressures on local factory owners.

Mapping multi-stakeholder initiatives for public governance and transparency: a comparative assessment of trends and motivations

ABSTRACT Global multi-stakeholder initiatives aiming to strengthen public governance and transparency (PGMSIs) in participating countries are increasingly prominent but little researched and undertheorized. This analysis provides a preliminary mapping of the 121 countries that participate in the six most prominent initiatives (CoST, EITI, OCP, OGP, IATI). Rates of participation in single and multiple initiatives are characterized according to contextual factors of geography, economic development, and democratic governance. This mapping is complemented by 31 interviews with government focal points in countries that participate in multiple initiatives, assessing national motivations for participation. Interview results suggest that countries are motivated by considerations related both to technical capacity development and reputational effects, and that in many countries these motivations are mutually reinforcing. Interview responses further highlight how different types of actors are associated with different motivations, including government agencies, domestic civil society, international donor organizations, and PGMSIs themselves. Findings indicate that national decisions to participate in PGMSIs are perceived to be driven by both capacity and reputational motivations, but primarily by national actors (heads of state, ministries, and to a lesser extent civil society). The particular role of the World Bank, different types of government actors, and the PGMSIs themselves are given particular attention.

The Role of Multistakeholder Initiatives in the Radicalization of Resistance: The Forest Stewardship Council and the Mapuche Conflict in Chile

AbstractMulti‐stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) that address sustainability concerns have grown in importance in recent years. These private governance measures involving market, state and civil society actors aim to resolve disagreements between stakeholders through stakeholder engagement practices. However, our empirical study of the Mapuche conflict in Chile shows how a multi‐stakeholder initiative contributed to the radicalization of a protest movement leading to an escalation of violence that left all actors worse off. The implementation of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme, perhaps the best known MSI, exacerbated existing political discontent among the Indigenous Mapuche peoples who were resisting the expansion of industrial forest on their lands in southern Chile. Our findings indicate that MSIs cannot address the needs of marginalized stakeholders and may further undermine their interests. Our analysis enhances our understanding of the outcomes of MSIs by describing processes of radicalization as well as the role of the state in conflicts. The FSC certification scheme was incapable of addressing the key Mapuche demand for land rights. Instead, it raised false expectations, which coupled with corporate irresponsibility and state repression led to an escalation of violence. The increasing reliance on private governance measures in natural resource management, especially in countries of the so‐called Global South, can further exacerbate existing conflicts and hence it is important to understand how and why MSIs lead to negative outcomes.

Surging Biojustice Environmentalism from Below: Hope for Ending the Earth System Emergency?

AbstractGlobal environmental politics is at a critical juncture as the Earth System emergency deepens. The core environmental policies and actions of governments, intergovernmental organizations, corporations, and, to a lesser extent, mainstream nongovernmental organizations are visibly failing to deescalate this emergency. In response to these failures, we argue, dispossessed individuals, Indigenous peoples, grassroots activists, and civil society campaigners are joining forces to challenge market-liberal and institutionalist thinking and initiate new ways of organizing political and social life that prioritize biological integrity and social justice: what we describe as “biojustice environmentalism from below.” Global environmental governance, meanwhile, is at a crossroads, becoming increasingly polycentric as biojustice environmentalism surges and as corporations seek to capture governance spaces through multistakeholder initiatives. How surging biojustice environmentalism in a polycentric governance landscape plays out in the coming years, we conclude, will be crucial for humanity’s ability to stem the escalating global environmental crisis.

Multi-stakeholder initiatives and decarbonization in the European food supply chain

The European Green Deal is a political milestone aiming to promote a carbon-neutral economy in the European Union. Decarbonizing the complex food sector requires the unified interaction among effective climate policies, economic instruments, and initiatives involving multiple stakeholders. Despite increasing efforts to highlight the importance of innovations and finance to achieve sustainable food supply chains (FSC), comprehensive information about related opportunities and barriers to mitigating emissions in the food sector is still under-explored. To cover this gap, this paper applies an existing industrial policy framework under the lens of the EU FSC to identify potential strategies that should help achieve the needed financial means and innovation actions, as well as to gauge political alignment across FSC stages. Methodologically, the pillars proposed in the framework are linked to multi-stakeholders’ initiatives engaged in achieving net-zero emissions. The paper highlights three main implications of the identified interlinkages. First, political directionality related to the food sector should be more comprehensively tailored to account for the specificities of all stages of the FSC. Second, research and development projects shall likewise cover all stages, instead of emphasizing only food production and agricultural systems. Finally, multiple stakeholders are crucial as promoters of technology and innovation towards a green economy. Nevertheless, initiatives should be integrated into political discussions in order to promote civil awareness, sustainable food and services demand, aligned to political guidelines.

How do stakeholder groups make sense of sustainability: Analysing differences in the complexity of their cognitive frames

AbstractCharacterizing major sustainability issues as ‘grand challenges’ has led to a call for collaboration among heterogeneous stakeholder groups, not least in multi‐stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). Research into MSIs has made substantial progress in understanding their workings; yet, it is still criticized for remaining undertheorized, echoing a criticism of management studies generally as paying insufficient attention to the micro–macro divide. Hence, we examined differences between stakeholder groups in the complexity of their cognitive frames on the topic of sustainability. We analysed 265 cognitive frames across four stakeholder groups (business, government, NGO, education). Analysing these frames in terms of the two dimensions of cognitive complexity—differentiation and integration—we found statistically significant differences in frame complexity between stakeholder groups. These micro‐level cognitive differences can explain macro‐level problems in stakeholder engagement and communication. Hence, we conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the enhancement of the effectiveness of MSIs.

Beyond the numbers on women’s representation: Recognition of women’s leadership in global governance

AbstractTo what extent has the glass ceiling in global governance been shattered? To answer this question, we need to look beyond the numbers on women’s representation and study how far women are perceived as inspiring and visionary leaders in global governance. This article offers an analysis of perceptions of inspiring and visionary leadership in global multistakeholder initiatives from a gender perspective. Based on 467 interviews with participants in a leading multistakeholder initiative, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), it presents four findings: (1) respondents identify more men than women as inspiring and visionary leaders, with the difference roughly corresponding to the share of women in leadership roles; (2) respondents tend to ascribe more leadership attributes to women than to men when explaining why they find them inspiring and visionary; (3) both feminine and masculine leadership traits are appreciated in relation to both men and women leaders at ICANN; (4) female respondents identify more women as inspiring and visionary leaders than male respondents. These findings contribute novel insights into gendered perceptions around leadership and the importance of role models in global governance. They also shed much-needed light on the demands and expectations from leadership in global multistakeholder arrangements.

Co-creation of the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator: a multi-stakeholder initiative to ensure the patient voice is represented in health decision-making

BackgroundPutting patients’ needs and priorities at the forefront of healthcare initiatives and medical product development is critical to achieve outcomes that matter most to patients. This relies on the integration of early, meaningful patient engagement (PE) to learn what is important to patients, and collection of representative patient experience data (PXD). The increased number of PE/PXD efforts across global regulatory, health technology assessment, and healthcare systems is an important step forward to deliver improved health outcomes for patients. However, these initiatives are fragmented and lack integration, which is necessary to maximize efforts and reduce burden on patients. To overcome these challenges, the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator has been co-created by Patient Focused Medicines Development to provide practical resources that can facilitate and optimize PXD generation, collection, analysis, and dissemination for patient benefit and aims to be applicable across all therapeutic areas for all stakeholders.MethodsCo-creation of the Navigator took place through an iterative process of validation and formalization driven by a diverse, multi-stakeholder working group with individuals who have varying knowledge/experience in PE/PXD.ResultsA series of workshops took place to conduct a gap analysis, develop a taxonomy model, and integrate existing frameworks. The collective insights led to the development of the Navigator consisting of four specific tools in the form of downloadable templates, which can be used to: (1) prioritize outcomes that matter most to patients and their caregivers; (2) select appropriate measurement methods for these outcomes; (3) identify when and why PXD is used throughout the product development cycle for each stakeholder; (4) identify when and why PXD is used throughout the healthcare process for each stakeholder. A public consultation was carried out to collect user feedback before the Navigator was made publicly available in December 2022.ConclusionTo our knowledge, the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator is the only publicly available toolkit developed with a multi-stakeholder and disease-agnostic approach providing taxonomically grouped resources to optimize the collection and collation of PXD for patient benefit. Future work will aim to further engage patients by adding a PE dimension to the Navigator.

A comparison of stakeholder engagement practices in voluntary sustainability standards

AbstractPractices of stakeholder engagement vary widely across voluntary sustainability standard setters. This study examines how the sponsorship structure of standard setters affects the diversity of stakeholders included in consultations and the influence of stakeholder input on standards. I compare six sustainability standard setters through an original dataset of 7945 stakeholder comments submitted during public comment periods between 2012 and 2019 to answer two research questions. First, are some standard setters better at balancing stakeholder representation than others? And second, does stakeholder influence vary across standard setters? I find that industry‐sponsored standards tend to attract more industry input than multistakeholder initiatives, but both tend to over‐represent legacy stakeholders. I also find that sponsorship is a poor predictor of which comments will be influential. Comments that seek to weaken or clarify the rules in voluntary sustainability standards are more likely to exert influence irrespective of the sponsorship of the standard setter.

Internationalization and firm performance: moderating role of multi-stakeholder initiatives

PurposePrevious scholars have assumed that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can reduce the liability of foreignness and increase profitability by investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, empirical validation of this assumption has rarely been attempted. This study aims to provide empirical evidence that the adoption of multi-stakeholder initiatives, which are globally recognized as signals of CSR, helps MNEs increase profits from internationalization.Design/methodology/approachFixed effect models, which address model misspecification problems, and instrumental variable estimation, which controls for the endogeneity in firms’ choice of internationalization, offer empirical evidence supporting the moderating effects of global multi-stakeholder initiatives on the relationship between internationalization and firm performance.FindingsThis study examines the moderating role of multi-stakeholder initiatives in the relationship between internationalization and firm performance, drawing on signaling and stakeholder theories. The results suggest that the signaling effect of multi-stakeholder initiatives can help MNEs overcome the liability of foreignness and, therefore, profit from overseas markets.Originality/valueAlthough the internationalization–firm performance relationship has been a subject of debate in the field of international business, the role of firms’ stakeholder engagement in this relationship has been largely overlooked in previous studies. In this study, the authors explore the impact of multi-stakeholder initiatives on the internationalization–firm performance relationship. Our primary contention is that multi-stakeholder initiatives have moderating effects on this relationship by reducing the liability of foreignness experienced by MNEs in host countries. Furthermore, the findings suggest that active engagement in multi-stakeholder initiatives significantly contributes to the financial success of MNEs as they internationalize.

Multi-stakeholder Initiatives and Legitimacy: A Deliberative Systems Perspective

The legitimacy of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) as institutions for social and environmental governance in the global economy has received much scholarly attention over the past years. To date, however, research has yet to focus on assessing the legitimacy of MSIs in their interactions with other actors within larger systems of deliberation. Drawing on the deliberative systems perspective developed within deliberative democracy theory, we theorise a normative framework to evaluate the roles of MSIs within the broader systems of governance they co-construct through their interactions with other initiatives, governments, non-governmental organisations, and other external actors. As we demonstrate in our evaluation of the illustrative case of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety as a MSI in the context of the Bangladeshi garment industry, this framework can help researchers assess whether a MSI ultimately serves to enhance or undermine the deliberative legitimacy of the overall system of which it forms a part.

The potential for freshwater citizen science to engage and empower: a case study of the Rivers Trusts, United Kingdom

Rivers Trusts in the United Kingdom work to protect and restore freshwater ecosystems. This includes the provision of citizen science opportunities that encompass water quality monitoring, assessment of polluting outfalls, surveying riverine plastic pollution, mapping and control of freshwater invasive species and assessment of the biological health of rivers. In some cases, citizen science data has led directly to action being taken to address a pollution source and, in one example, indirectly influenced policy focus. Online platforms play an increasingly important role in capturing and portraying citizen science data. A large multi-stakeholder initiative aims to achieve a step-change in the contribution of citizen science to the assessment of river health including development of a standardised national framework. There is potential for citizen science to widen the monitoring of freshwater to encompass toxic chemicals.