Framing contests in global NGO networks: How controversies enable and challenge collaboration and action

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21395
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Published date: 01 March 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Framing contests in global NGO networks: How

controversies enable and challenge collaboration

and action

Luli Pesqueira

1

| Pieter Glasbergen

2

| Pieter Leroy

3

1

EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de

Monterrey, Mexico City, Mexico

2

ICIS–Maastricht University, Maastricht,

The Netherlands

3

Department Geography, Planning and

Environment, Radboud University

Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Correspondence

Luli Pesqueira, EGADE Business School,

Tecnologico de Monterrey, Carlos Lazo

100, Santa Fe, 01389 Mexico City, Mexico

Email: luz.pesqueira@tec.mx

Abstract

In multistakeholder sustainability initiatives, nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs) need not only to negotiate with actors

from other sectors, but also with other NGOs. Taking a fram-

ing perspective, this study examines how NGOs engage in

framing contests because of their collaborative attitude

toward the private sector. Through an analysis of Oxfam's

participation in the Shrimp Aquaculture Dialogues, the paper

examines the interplay between NGOs that propose and

oppose certification as a viable strategy for ensuring sustain-

ability in the farmed shrimp sector. The results show that

controversies among NGO groups related prognostic framing

(i.e., regarding the proposed solution to a problem) are char-

acterized by specific ontological and normative attributes.

The paper offers NGOs strategies for dealing with such con-

troversies and shows that, depending on the nature of the

controversy, engaging in framing contests might enlarge or

constrain the roles that an NGO is able to play in a multi-

stakeholder setting, particularly, when it comes to preserving

its independence while securing interdependence with

others.

KEYWORDS

collaboration, controversy, framing, networks, NGOs

1|INTRODUCTION

Since cross-sectoral partnerships became highlighted as one of the main mechanisms to achieve sus-

tainable development in the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit and, more recently, in the United

Received: 7 November 2018 Revised: 21 October 2019 Accepted: 25 October 2019

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21395

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2020;30:423–444. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 423

Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), an increasing number of NGOs are working

together with businesses and governments to bring change in the areas of poverty, energy, biodiver-

sity, agriculture, health, education, and almost every domain in society (United Nations, 2016).

These new forms of collaboration can take the shape of bilateral or trilateral partnerships, as well as

multistakeholder platforms with several representatives from each sector. Examples in the agri-food

sector include roundtables convened by NGOs and businesses with the purpose of making the beef,

coffee, cotton, fish, palm oil, and soy sectors more sustainable through the development, application,

and certification of improved social and environmental practices (Oxfam Novib, 2015; WWF, 2018).

So far, research in the area of NGO-business collaboration from the nonprofit view has examined

the factors that motivate and enable NGOs to engage in collaboration (Abouassi, Makhlouf, &

Whalen, 2016; AL-Tabbaa, Leach, & March, 2014; Guo & Acar, 2005; Lu, 2018), including the for-

mation and demise of collaborations in light of the governance structures and tensions within such

networks (Ashman & Luca Sugawara, 2013; Cornforth, Hayes, & Vangen, 2015), and the role of

NGOs' board members on nonprofit collaboration with other NGOs, businesses, and government

agencies (Ihm & Shumate, 2018). Other important areas of research include assessing the effective-

ness of collaborations (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012; Babiak, 2009; Balser & McClusky, 2005;

Pattberg & Widerberg, 2016), as well as the power dynamics among actors (Bouchard & Raufflet,

2019; Herlin, 2015; Schiller & Almog-Bar, 2013). However, this debate about partnerships as inclu-

sive arrangements (Bitzer & Glasbergen, 2015), has largely overlooked the fact that tensions and

conflicting expectations arise not only between actors from different sectors, but also between actors

from the same sector that engage in dynamics of cooperation and competition (Hahn & Pinkse,

2014; York & Zychlinski, 1996). In fact, organizations that participate in cross-sector partnerships

need to negotiate and coordinate at different levels (Gray, 2011), as they engage with actors both

inside (e.g., firms and NGOs) and outside (e.g., constituents, media, extended NGO networks, gen-

eral public) the collaborative arrangement.

The social movement literature explains that such intramovement disputes are essentially disputes

over reality (what is going on here?) and how to deal with it (what can we do about it?). Accord-

ingly, disagreement about diagnoses or prognoses of a particular problem can emerge and result in

“frame disputes”(Benford, 1993, 1997; Brummans et al., 2008). Framing in this context refers to the

interactions through which actors negotiate a common view regarding a grievance that might moti-

vate them to establish some form of collaboration (Hanggli & Kriesi, 2012; Zald, 1996). The concept

of framing disputes is used to describe the intentional use of specific narratives to transform them

into the dominant frame and gain advantage in a competitive environment (Kaplan, 2008; Nelson &

Tallontire, 2014).

NGOs active in the same-issue field share a concern for a particular sustainability problem and

are thus likely to agree on their diagnoses or definition of the problem. However, it is probable that

they will encounter disagreement concerning the solutions and strategies proposed to address a sus-

tainability challenge, forcing the organization to engage in framing contests with other NGOs within

the network. This qualitative study investigates this phenomenon. In particular, it identifies the types

of controversies that NGOs might encounter within their networks and asks how such controversies

might enlarge or constrain their capacity for action.

To shed light on this issue, the paper examines the opposition encountered by Oxfam Novib—the

Dutch affiliate of Oxfam International—due to its participation in the Shrimp Aquaculture Dialogue

(SHAD), an initiative convened in 2007 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) with the objective of

developing a credible standard for sustainable farmed shrimp production (WWF, 2013). In the course

of designing and launching this standard, Oxfam Novib became confronted with a coalition of 90+

424 PESQUEIRA ET AL.