Dominant Articulations in Academic Business and Society Discourse on NGO–Business Relations: A Critical Assessment

Relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies have been the subject of a sharply increasing amount of publications in recent years within academic business journals. In this article, we critically assess this fast-developing body of literature, which we treat as forming a ‘business and society discourse’ on NGO–business relations. Drawing on discourse theory, we examine 199 academic articles in 11 business and society, international business, and management journals. Focusing on the dominant articulations on the NGO–business relationship and key signifiers they rely on, we analyze the problem-settings of articles in order to reveal the statements that are acceptable and appropriate within this field. Our threefold aim is to (1) identify dominant articulations of NGO–business relations in business and society discourse, (2) expose those articulations that are silenced or suppressed by these dominant articulations, and (3) critically assess possible power effects of these discursive dynamics in the field of discursivity. While business and society discourse on NGO–business relations overall remains open to many different articulations, we also find that those articulations that focus on NGO–business partnerships and governance initiatives tend to privilege collaborative and deliberative ways of engaging and marginalize more adversarial subject positions. We call for more recognition of the potentially constructive role that can be played by conflict.================="By blurring the roles of all institutional actors, the discourse also makes it possible for business actors to be increasingly posited as a legitimate ‘part of the solution’ to contemporary governance challenges. Hence, our interpretation is that business and society discourse interacts with social movements discourse and governance discourse in the following ways: it attempts to (1) co-opt social movements through partnership and collaborative articulations, (2) suppress those accounts of social movements theory that are still focused on adversarial relationships, and (3) place business at the center of governance discourse notably through articulations that draw on ‘deliberative democracy’ and the ‘postpolitical’ perspective."