Top NGO Partnerships With Corporations: A Test of the Symbiotic Sustainability Model

• In Event: Good to Make Your Acquaintance: Networks and Collective Action Within and Between Organizations

Abstract

Studies of partnerships between corporations and nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) typically examine the relationship from the corporation’s perspective. Although this perspective is informative and has guided the majority of the corporate social responsibility literature, it tends to ignore the role of NGOs in the partnership. Drawing from the Symbiotic Sustainability Model, we suggest that NGOs have an equally important, albeit different, role in these relationships. In order to understand the NGO-corporate partnership network from the NGO perspective, we examined 122 of the largest, most recognizable NGOs, according to the Philanthropy 100 and Cone Brand 100. This yielded a list of 1740 corporate partners and 2424 cross-sector relationships. The results demonstrate leading NGOs are strategic in communicating their corporate partnerships, communicate relatively few corporate partners and only one corporate partner in each economic industry. However, the same mimetic tendencies reported in studies of corporations in economic industries were not present in NGO issue industries. The most popular economic industries reported were financial services, pharmaceutical, and professional services. Particularly salient pairings included: (1) environmental NGOs and metals, energy, and oil industries, (2) health NGOs and the pharmaceutical industry, and (3) human services NGOs and the pharmaceutical industry.

Authors

• Michelle D. Shumate, Northwestern U

• Yuli Patrick Hsieh, Media, Technology and Society Program, Northwestern University

• Amy O'Connor, North Dakota State U