ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how private sector companies and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in developing countries can come together for mutual benefit, despite their innate differences. In both the corporate and NGO worlds, strategic alliances of two or more organizations working toward a common goal are increasingly termed partnerships. But for collaboration between business and NGOs, "partnership" is a misnomer. Businesses pursue profit, NGOs the public good. Cooperation between the two should recognize both the different realities of the two parties and the different obstacles they face. The multinational company believed that a critical review of its operations by Philippine NGOs could strengthen its reputation as a responsible company. It also knew that it was taking a risk, and that transgressions would be found. The NGO reviewers, too, would be taking a risk. The responses of the NGOs that were invited to be reviewers reflected the ambivalence in the Philippines toward multinational companies.
