Examining how Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) in Malaysia communicate with corporations

Stakeholder demand for corporations to demonstrate greater ecological responsibility, as well as funding and mission pressures for Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs), has led to a rise in cross-sector partnerships between the two.Such partnerships are beneficial to both parties, but despite holding higher public trust, research shows ENGOs suffer more risks.There is a research gap on ENGO-Corporate partnerships in Malaysia.It is important to fill this gap as environmental sustainability is a global concern, but such efforts in a developing country like Malaysia are still in their infancy.This exploratory study aims to fill this gap by drawing from Stakeholder Theory to examine how ENGOs communicate with corporations in a partnership.A phenomenological, exploratory, semi-structured qualitative study was conducted with five members of ENGOs who had experience communicating with corporations.The research verifies that ENGOs in Malaysia are aware of partnership risks and emphasize communication before formalizing partnerships through screening and education as a method of risk mitigation.A novel finding is that some ENGOs in Malaysia perceive short-term partnerships to be greenwashing attempts.Ultimately, Malaysian ENGOs are aware of their disadvantages but are still willing to work with corporate partners to pursue their environmental mission.The results justify the need to expand the study and could be considered to motivate budding ENGOs to improve their self-protection mechanisms via legal contracts.The results could also inspire corporations to consider long-term sustainability partnerships.