Good Cop-Bad Cop: NGO Influencing Strategies in the Corporate Game

Abstract

In its development from the early stages of post-colonial trade to neo-liberalism, the tropical fruit industry has had a turbulent history, marked by numerous violations of social, environmental and economic rights. Over the past 20 years the greater integration of world markets, together with the development of technology and the Internet have made it possible for groups of local actors to resist and attempt to change the rules of the game at national and international levels, leading to the development of a rich governance scene. The current thesis inquired into the way in which NGOs make decisions regarding the influencing strategies they use to determine changes in the CSR policies of companies in this supply chain, and explored which of these strategies was most effective. The research used a comparative analysis of two cooperative and two confrontational influencing strategies to answer these questions, based on a conceptual model created through the study of Institutional Rational Choice literature.

The findings indicated that this classification of strategies is insufficient to explain the observed company responses to NGOs demands; the complexity of the decision-making process, defined in terms of the inclusiveness of secondary stakeholders and a number of variables considered, provided higher explanatory power. While these strategies are indeed created on the basis of the 8 variables identified, (namely Funding, NGO-Network, Company-NGO factors, NGO, Company, other NGOs, Supply chain and Issue characteristics), consistent patterns of successful strategy decision-making could not be identified. Also, the case studies show that NGOs combine their confrontational or cooperative strategies with ‘carrot and stick’ engagement tactics in order to influence companies and promote the evolution of governance in the tropical fruit supply chain arena. Lastly, change of CSR policies in the targeted companies seems to be triggered in response to a broader range of factors than individual NGO influencing strategies. These findings indicate that the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Network Approach to policy analysis might be two theoretical frameworks that are better suited for understanding the strategies civil society actors used to influence CSR in this supply chain.