Cross-Sector Social Partnerships for Social Change: The Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations

Xinya Yan, Haiying Lin and Amelia Clarke
Additional contact information
Xinya Yan: Local Economic Development Program, School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development (SEED), University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W. Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
Haiying Lin: Management Department, College of Business, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA
Amelia Clarke: School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development (SEED), University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: Complex social and environmental issues call for broader collaboration across different sectors so as to instigate transformative social change. While previous scholars have emphasized the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in facilitating social change, they have not provided a nuanced assessment of NGOs’ different roles. We use the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) research partnership as a study case and explore NGO partners’ different roles in a large cross-sector social partnership (CSSP). By interviewing 12 NGO partners and 4 non-NGO partners involved in the PEPSO research partnership, our research results show that NGOs primarily have 10 roles in a CSSP. They include enabling roles such as consultant, capacity builder, analyst, and funder; coordinating roles such as broker and communicator; and facilitating roles such as initiator, leader, advocate, and monitor. These roles allow NGOs to fulfil their duties to make substantial contributions to a CSSP.

Keywords: roles of non-governmental organizations; NGOs; cross-sector social partnerships; social change; sustainable development goals; SDG #17; SDG #8; broker; enabler; facilitator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/2/558/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/2/558/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:2:p:558-:d:132870

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().