Enhancing the Impact of Cross-Sector Partnerships. Four Impact Loops for Channeling Partnership Studies

This paper addresses the topic of this special symposium issue: how to enhance the impact of cross-sector partnerships. The paper takes stock of two related discussions: the discourse in cross-sector partnership research on how to assess impact and the discourse in impact assessment research on how to deal with more complex organizations and projects. We argue that there is growing need and recognition for cross-fertilization between the two areas. Cross-sector partnerships are reaching a paradigmatic status in society, but both research and practice need more thorough evidence of their impacts and of the conditions under which these impacts can be enhanced. This paper develops a framework that should enable a constructive interchange between the two research areas, while also framing existing research into more precise categories that can lead to knowledge accumulation. We address the preconditions for such a framework and discuss how the constituent parts of this framework interact. We distinguish four different pathways or impact loops that refer to four distinct orders of impact. The paper concludes by applying these insights to the four papers included in this special issue

Collaborative Approaches to the Sociopolitical Environment: The Emergence of Issues Management Alliances

Increasing turbulence in the sociopolitical environment is reshaping the environmental management strategies employed by business and other institutions. New expectations of the role of business in society, changing demographics, critical social problems such as spiraling health care costs, educational reform and child care, and environmental degradation are posing serious challenges to business organizations and society as a whole. Private, public, and independent sector institutions have initiated a wide variety of collaborative, multi-organizational approaches to issues management which we describe as issues management alliances (IMAs). Known by a myriad of labels such as public-private partnerships, innovating organizations, community development corporations, and self-regulatory agencies, issues management alliances appear to be an adaptive mode of response to a turbulent sociopolitical environment: specifically, they address complex issues and problems that are not being managed adequately by organizations acting alone. To date, however, our understanding of issues management alliances has been fragmented. The primary purpose of this paper is to foster a more systematic appreciation of this robust phenomenon. First, we provide a definition of issues management alliance and organize the disparate examples of IMAs using Cummings\u27 (1984) model of transorganizational systems. Second, we discuss the necessary conditions for the emergence and maintenance of this mode of response in terms of their effectiveness and differential efficiency. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the implications of this phenomenon

Entrepreneurial Community Development - Exploring Earned Income Activities and Strategic Alliances for Community Development Nonprofits

This paper examines social entrepreneurship from a community-development perspective. The target audience is community-development nonprofit organizations. The paper begins by contextualizing social entrepreneurship in community development and creating an analytical framework in which to think about efforts of organizations to integrate entrepreneurial and businesslike thinking. The paper presents key findings regarding both earned-income activities and strategic alliances as options for these organizations, as well as 10 key issues that arose as factors that impact their successful implementation. Information was gathered through a literature review, 29 interviews of practitioners, policymakers and academics and a survey of 59 community-development nonprofit organizations

How managers can build trust in strategic alliances: a meta-analysis on the central trust-building mechanisms

Trust is an important driver of superior alliance performance. Alliance managers are influential in this regard because trust requires active involvement, commitment and the dedicated support of the key actors involved in the strategic alliance. Despite the importance of trust for explaining alliance performance, little effort has been made to systematically investigate the mechanisms that managers can use to purposefully create trust in strategic alliances. We use Parkhe’s (1998b) theoretical framework to derive nine hypotheses that distinguish between process-based, characteristic-based and institutional-based trust-building mechanisms. Our meta-analysis of 64 empirical studies shows that trust is strongly related to alliance performance. Process-based mechanisms are more important for building trust than characteristic- and institutional-based mechanisms. The effects of prior ties and asset specificity are not as strong as expected and the impact of safeguards on trust is not well understood. Overall, theoretical trust research has outpaced empirical research by far and promising opportunities for future empirical research exist

Learning in Strategic Alliances

{Excerpt} Strategic alliances that bring organizations together promise unique opportunities for partners. The reality is often otherwise. Successful strategic alliances manage the partnership, not just the agreement,for collaborative advantage. Above all, they also pay attentionto learning priorities in alliance evolution. The resource-based view of the firm that gained currency in the mid-1980s considered that the competitive advantage of an organization rests on the application of the strategic resources at its disposal. These days, orthodoxy recognizes the merits of the dynamic, knowledge-based capabilities underpinning the positions organizations occupy in a sector or market. Strategic alliances—meaning cooperative agreements between two or more organizations—are a means to enhance strategic resources: self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly difficult in a complex, uncertain, and discontinuous external environment that calls for focus and flexibility in equal measure. Everywhere, organizations are discovering that they cannot “go” it alone and must now often turn to others to survive

Developing strategic learning alliances: partnerships for the provision of global education and training solutions

The paper describes a comprehensive model for the development of strategic alliances between education and corporate sectors, which is required to ensure effective provision of education and training programmes for a global market. Global economic forces, combined with recent advances in information and communication technologies, have provided unprecedented opportunities for education providers to broaden the provision of their programmes both on an international scale and across new sectors. Lifelong learning strategies are becoming increasingly recognized as an essential characteristic of a successful organization and therefore large organizations have shown a preparedness to invest in staff training and development. The demands for lifelong learning span a wide range of training and educational levels from school-level and vocational courses to graduate-level training for senior executive

The impact of industry group culture on the development of opportunism in cross-sector alliances

Over the last two decades the world economy has dramatically transformed, with strategic alliances and partnerships across industrial and global boundaries becoming an important means to maintaining and regaining competitive positioning. In spite of an increase in partnership activity, alliances continue to face problems fuelled by factors such as partner opportunism, and cultural incompatibility. This paper highlights the emergence of opportunism in alliances arising from cross-sectoral partners’ differences in cultural values and norms. The literature indicates that cultural differences are important factors for understanding the behaviour of managers across sectors