Civil Society Flashcards
Civil society is the third section
NGOs, Pressure groups, charities, and unions
CSO
Include pressure groups, non governmental organisations, charities, religious groups and other actors that are neither business nor government organisations, but which are involved in the promotion of certain interests, causes and/or goals (crane and matten)
Examples - WWF, green peace, PETA, earth firs, amnesty
CSO as stakeholder
Represents the interests of individual stakeholders (act on behalf of citizens)
Represents the interest of non human stakeholders (animal/environment)
Increasing number of CSO’s (2 million US)
Degree of trust ins specific organisations US vs Europe
European trust the likes of green peace, amnesty, WWF more than Ford, Nike, Microsoft
US trust NGO’s less than Europeans
In general the US trust Microsoft, Nike and ford more than amnesty, Greenpeace and WWF
Perceived credibility regarding specific issues
US and Europe think NGOs are more credible than corps on tackling environmental and human rights issues
The tactics of civil society organisations
Indirect actions
Violent direct actions
Non violent direct actions
Indirect actions
Involve research and communication
Competition for public and media attention
Development of credible arguments about issues
Risk: provision of misleading info
Violent direct actions
Illegal and highly visible action (more media attention) (eg protestation against G20 in April 2009)
Smith notes gets the most publicity
Huddington life sciences were testing on 70,000 animals - ‘stop huddington life sciences set up’ - the company lost investment and went into liquidation- smashed windows
Non violent direct actions
Boycotts, demonstrations, protests, occupations, sabotage, letter, emails, social media
Boycott: attempt by one or more parties to achieve certain objectives by urging consumers to refrain from certain purchaser companies
Ethical issues of CSO
Accountability and governance - who exactly is an organisation such as green peace supposed to be serving
CSO from developed country may misrepresent interests of local people in developing country’s
Involvement of beneficiaries in CSO decision making is very limited
Need for financial support can focus CSO on donors priorities
From confrontation to collaboration
Although examples of collaboration between businesses and NGOs have occurred at least since the 70s relations have commonly been aggressive and confrontational
In 90s however while considerable conflict still remains between these groups, collaboration has been growing (Crane)
Business - CSO collaboration
Closer and more interactive relationships between civil society and corporations
Sometimes called social partnerships
Limitations of these (difficulties managing relations beeston culturally diversity orgs) (partnerships Appear to mask conflict between partners - power imbalance - distribution of benefits)
Greenpeace and Faron collaboration example
Greenpeace championed ‘ozone friendly’ refrigeration technology
Strategic alliance with German fridge manufacturer faron
Launched ‘green freeze’ fishes
Greenpeace storm advocacy role - successful product and benchmarking lead to market reform
Dominant organisation focused view of managing CSO stakeholder
Stakeholder management is defined by the focal organisation, which determines who is a stakeholder and evaluates their characteristics - namely their potential to harm the organisation (Roloff)
In multiple stakeholder situations this form of stakeholder theory fails to reflect reality:
- corporations not in full control
- they are more like participants than central actors
- they often lack expertise on an issue
Organisational focused stakeholder management
Implications - prioritise threats to firm eg from shareholders, suppliers, media - rather than those of the vulnerable or marginal stakeholders who are solely affected. when threaten with a boycott, a manager might engage in discussion on labour rights with NGOs trade unions or media rather than talking to workers (Roloff)
