The Advocate’s Own Challenges to Behave in a Sustainable Way: An Institutional Analysis of Advocacy NGOs

Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly important drivers for businesses' self-regulation to operate in a sustainable way. We shift the perspective on NGOs from focusing on their advocacy role to focusing on their accountability for having sustainable internal operations. In a multiple case analysis, we explore the question 'What are the drivers and barriers to sustainable conduct of NGOs that are sustainability advocates?' Drawing on institutional theory, we obtain novel insights into the legitimacy-seeking motivations for sustainable conduct in the specific context of advocacy NGOs. We found that, affected by its mission, (1) the cultural-cognitive drive is particularly high, with sustainable conduct as an internally 'taken-forgranted' behavior, followed by (2) the normative drivers, with the balance between perceived vulnerability of needing to 'walk the talk' and the sense of immunity due to lack of external scrutiny, and (3) there are hardly any regulative drivers. Furthermore, these organizations face idiosyncratic trade-offs when balancing investments in their advocacy missions with investments in sustainable operations, reflecting ethical dilemmas. In a broader sense, this research elucidates the way advocates cope in situations of institutional complexity, with conflicting institutional demands between their mission and role-model function.

The hidden side of sustainable operations and supply chain management: unanticipated outcomes, trade-offs and tensions

“…While these research streams have merit for the OSCM field, we rarely found the trade-off concept being further conceptualized or sources for these trade-offs to be examined within these publications, with notable exemptions (e.g. Dabhilkar et al, 2016;Rodr ıguez et al, 2016;Brennan and Tennant, 2018;Koster et al, 2019;Longoni et al, 2019). In this light, the aim of this special issue is to foster research that more actively engages with the challenges of unanticipated outcomes, tensions and trade-offs from a conceptual stance.…”

Determinants of corporate environmental performance and the moderating effect of economic crises

“…Literature review and hypotheses 2.1 Institutional theory and the determinants of corporate environmental performance Institutional theory explains that organisational behaviour is motivated not only by economic reasons but also by socially determined justifications and obligations. Institutional theory postulates that organisations are influenced by the pressures that they receive from their institutional environment in three domains: the regulatory domain, which establishes formal rules; the normative domain, understood as the set of moral and cultural norms; and the cognitive domain, referring to the perception of organisational legitimacy (Koster et al, 2019;Scott, 2008). These pressures lead entities to adapt their organisational behaviour, processes, and structures (Ortas et al, 2019;Ali et al, 2019).…”

“…The institutional theory is used as the theoretical background. The institutional environment delimits norms that are based on the moral and cultural standards according to which an organisation is legitimised to operate (institutional regulatory, normative, and legitimacy environment) (Koster et al. , 2019; Riquel-Ligero and Sánchez-Vargas, 2013).…”

Accounting for Failure Through Morality: The IMF’s Involvement in (Mis)managing the Greek Crisis

“…Prominent economic reform programs are often effected through fiscal policy changes. The type and level of interventions in national economies indicate that countries are increasingly treated as manageable territories for accommodating changes planned by supranational institutions (Koster et al, 2019;Roxas and Coetzer, 2012).…”