EMERGING DISCOURSE INCUBATOR: Delivering Transformational Change: Aligning Supply Chains and Stakeholders in Non-Governmental Organizations

Governments and global corporations increasingly both confront and rely on international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) to identify, design, and deliver interventions that prompt transformational change in societies, industries, and supply chains. For INGOs, transformational change is defined as a fundamental, long-lasting reframing of a social or industrial system through synergistically altering the knowledge, practices, and relationships of multiple stakeholder groups. With each intervention, the focal INGO assembles its own complex supply chain of nonprofit organizations and for-profit firms to provide the necessary resources and skills. While prior supply chain management literature provides a good starting point, with some generalizability to the nonprofit sector, this study begins with several key differences to explore how interventions are delivered, and then, how INGOs' supply chains must be aligned. In doing so, at least three critical factors must be taken into account to improve alignment: stakeholder-induced uncertainty; supply chain configuration; and supply chain dynamism. By synthesizing these factors with prior literature and emerging anecdotal evidence, tentative frameworks and research questions emerge about how INGOs can better leverage their supply chains, thereby offering a basis for scholars in supply chain management to build a much richer and more nuanced research understanding of INGOs.