668/ASQ, December 2009

Book Reviews
NGOs and Corporations: Conict and Collaboration.
Michael Yaziji and Jonathan Doh. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2009. 192 pp. $39.99, paper.
If we increasingly live in a society of organizations, as some
have argued (Zald and McCarthy, 1987; Perrow, 1991), then
this trend is perhaps nowhere as striking as among nonprot
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). As Michael Yaziji and
Jonathan Doh argue in NGOs and Corporations , NGOs have
multiplied in numbers over the past 20 years and have taken
on advocacy and service roles in a wide range of domains,
from improving healthcare to protesting human rights abuses.
If we want to understand the relationship between busi-
nesses and civil societythe premise of the bookwe need
to understand the interaction between businesses and their
organizational counterparts in the civil sphere, NGOs. This
compact, well-organized, and highly readable book offers a
welcome and timely map to this emerging terrain.
The book is structured in three main parts, each of which
closes with short case illustrations of the material covered.
These two to four page mini-cases range from the simple
how the relationship between animal rights organization PETA
and KFC evolved from cooperative to confrontationalto the
more complexhow Coca Cola dealt with multiparty conicts
over water use in India. Each chapter outlines an analytic
framework for an orienting question and closes with a sum-
mary. The rst part, comprising chapters 1 to 3, seeks to
provide a systematic understanding of the world of NGOs.
The book opens with one of its strongest chapters, classifying
NGOs according to their primary activity (service provision or
advocacy) and their beneciary (self or others). We come to
appreciate, for example, why Greenpeace as an advocacy
organization employs different tactics than Doctors Without
Borders as a service organization. Yaziji and Doh also present
a model of how these different types of NGOs relate to each
other and to the social movements that often fuel them.
Chapter 2 addresses the question of why NGOs arise. It
sketches out a theory of how NGOs emerge as a result of
market and regulatory failures. Chapter 3 discusses the part
NGOs play in the context of other stakeholders of the rm.
The focus is on legitimacy and on the challenges that arise for
corporations from ideological differences between stake-
holder groups.
Chapters 4 to 6 turn to the interaction between NGOs and
corporations, with a focus on confrontational relationships.
Chapter 4 examines factors that increase a corporations
social risk of becoming the target of activist campaigns that
threaten its legitimacy and performance. Here, the authors
offer a useful checklist for anticipating NGOs advocacy
campaigns based on risk factors at the level of the rm (e.g.,
brand name recognition increases vulnerability), the institu-
tional eld (e.g., operating in contexts with uid rules of the
game makes mistakes more likely), and the movement (e.g.,
existing activist networks facilitate campaign mobilization).
Chapter 5 turns to differences in tactics and channels of
inuence between radical and more mainstream advocacy
NGOs. Chapter 6 takes a closer look at different types of cam-
paigns and corporate response strategies. The authors rightly
Book Reviews
669/ASQ, December 2009
point out the dilemma for corporations: ignoring NGOs
attacks when they occur is costly, but predicting them ahead
of time is rather difcult. Yaiji and Doh conclude that the
best response seems to be deterring relationships laden with
animosity, and instead refocusing on some level of collabora-
tion between the rm and NGO (p. 110). This statement
perhaps best captures the overarching message of the book:
that rms should proactively engage NGOs in collaborative
relationships to reduce the risk of costly confrontations and
reap the benets of working together.
Chapters 7 and 8, in part 3, describe collaborative relation-
ships between corporations and NGOs. This part of the book
contains the most novel and thought-provoking material.
Chapter 7 analyzes the pros and cons of engaging in collabo-
rations, from the perspective of both businesses and NGOs.
It suggests, for example, that partnering with NGOs not only
prevents conict but can help corporations anticipate shifts in
demand and stimulate innovation. Chapter 8 examines the
specic challenges and opportunities for multinational enter-
prises and international NGOs, returning to the thesis from
chapter 2 that NGOs can ll voids left by ineffective states in
developing countries. Chapter 9, set apart from the others as
predictions of future trends, suggests a progression in the
relations between NGOs and corporations. The contemporary
emphasis on dyadic partnerships and voluntary industry
standards has replaced the predominance of conictual
campaigns in the past and paves the way for future multiparty
collaborations aimed at shaping state regulations. The authors
imply that this last stage, effectively a collaborative triad of
NGOs, corporations, and states, is likely to be most effective
in providing social goods.
NGOs and Corporations is a successful contribution to a
fast-growing area of research and teaching. The book is
suitable for introductory graduate level or advanced under-
graduate courses in business and society or non-market
strategy. It is of equal relevance to practicing managers who
need to navigate complex and contested social environments.
Yaziji and Doh strike a good balance in supplying frameworks,
data, and case illustrations and convey a realistic view of the
extent of scholarly knowledge. They review a mix of institu-
tional, organizational, and behavioral strategy research and
integrate aspects of social movement studies, business
ethics, and stakeholder theories. The unique value of this
book lies in its useful frameworks for understanding the
variety of NGOs and their relations to corporations and for
choosing appropriate corporate engagement strategies.
Bringing such clarity is no small feat for an empirical phenom-
enon that is relatively new, fast changing, and dazzlingly
complex.
Despite the books impressive scope, its limitations are more
often omissions than commissions. For example, I would
have welcomed greater analysis of the interplay between
collaborative and conict approaches. There is a clear underly-
ing message that collaboration is ultimately more desirable
than conict in the relation between civil society actors and
corporations. But although one may hope that corporations
are morally responsive to NGOs agendas, political pressure
670/ASQ, December 2009
from NGOs and from governments may be necessary for the
common good when interests and institutional incentives
diverge. Conversely, cooptation is a real danger for any
movement seeking signicant change, and one of the most
interesting questions for researchers and practitioners is how
relationships between multiple NGOs and corporations are to
be structured. The authors focus on NGOs as organizational
actors also leads them to pay less attention to local civic
engagement and less organized movements. One may think
of neighborhood groups or spontaneous mobilization episodes
that do not give rise to formal organizations. One reason why
corporations often nd strategic engagement with civil
society difcult is the lack of organizational partners for
routine, ongoing, and possibly contractual exchanges. If the
goal is to provide corporate managers with a map to navigate
the dynamics of civil society, including the non-organized part
of what sociologists refer to as the third sector of society
would be especially welcome.
Despite these smaller shortcomings, NGOs and Corporations
covers an admirably large intellectual terrain in a clear and
concise way. More a map than a recipe, Yaziji and Dohs book
stimulates critical thinking and invites systematic analysis of
relations between NGOs and corporations. Given the dynamic
and unstructured nature of the third sector, that may well be
the best contribution a book on the topic can provide.
Klaus Weber
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL 60208
REFERENCES
Perrow, C.
1991 A society of organizations.
Theory and Society, 20:
725762.
Zald, M. N., and J. D. McCarthy
1987 Social Movements in an
Organizational Society. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Books.
Copyright of Administrative Science Quarterly is the property of Administrative Science Quarterly and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.