OPPORTUNISM AND NGOS - ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND GREEN NORTH-SOUTH TRANSFERS

Through the lens of entrepreneurship, this paper applies the New institutional Economics to examine two case studies of environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Latin America to clarify their political economic roles. Southern NGOs that rely on Northern donors are viewed as entrepreneurial economic entities producing international public goods. These nonprofit NGOs take their place alongside for-profit firms as contributors to economic production, employment, institutional innovation, and technology transfer. The theoretical framework proposed assumes that self-interested behavior coexists with loyalty, commitment, and altruism as well as opportunism.