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

Toward Collaborative Cross-Sector Business Models for Sustainability

Sustainability challenges typically occur across sectoral boundaries, calling the state, market, andcivil society to action. While consensus exists on the merits of cross-sector collaboration, ourunderstanding of whether and how it can create value for various, collaborating stakeholders is still limited. This Special Issue focuses on how new combined knowledge on cross-sector collaboration and business models for sustainability can inform the academic and practitioner debates about sustainability challenges and solutions. We discuss how cross-sector collaboration can play an important role for the transition to new and potentially sustainability-driving business models given that value creation, delivery and capture of organizations are intimately related to the collaborative ties with their stakeholders. Sustainable alternatives to conventional business models tend to adopt a more holistic perspective of business by broadening the spectrum of solutions and stakeholders and, when aligned with cross-sector collaboration, can contribute new ways of addressing the wicked sustainability problems humanity faces

Cross-Sector social partnership success: A process perspective on the role of relational factors

The study employs partial least squares structural equation modelling to examine cross-sector social partnership success in the context of Spanish business (N = 102). Proposing the development of second-order models, the research identifies the role of relational factors that directly and indirectly affect partnership success. The study demonstrates that to increase partnership success, it is essential for socially responsible businesses to share the same values with their non-profit partners, thus contributing to trust and commitment and effectively enhancing relational effects. Employing relational factors for the conceptualisation of partnership success contributes an empirical quantitative process perspective that associates success with value creation processe

Circular economy inspired imaginaries for sustainable innovations

In this chapter, Narayan and Tidström draw on the concept of imaginaries to show how Circular Economy (CE) can facilitate values that enable sustainable innovation. Innovation is key for sustainability, however, understanding and implementing sustainable innovation is challenging, and identifying the kind of actions that could direct sustainable innovations is important. The findings of this study indicate that CE-inspired imaginaries enable collaboration and by relating such imaginaries to common and shared social and cultural values, intermediaries could motivate actors into taking actions that contribute to sustainable innovation.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Civil Society–Business Relations

Civil society organizations (CSOs) and businesses have a long and diverse history of relationships, ranging from confrontation to collaboration. Over the past decades, there has been growing attention among scholars and practitioners to understanding the challenges and dynamics of civil society–business relationships. This increased interest has been especially pronounced internationally on issues of societal or public concern, such as environment, poverty, human rights, and most starkly, global health pandemics such as covid-19, referred to as “Grand Challenges”. As companies have gone global in their operations, so too have their engagements with CSOs (Kulik, 1999; Bendell and Kearins, 2005). At a global level, the United Nations adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to galvanize action by governments, business, and civil society towards socially inclusive and sustainable development (George et al., 2016). Specifically, SDG#17 refers to the “Partnerships for the Goals” highlighting the urgent need for collaboration across the sectors to mobilize, redirect and unlock both capital and transformative action to deliver on sustainable development objectives at global, regional, national and local levels. Notably, the SDGs face an annual financing gap of approximately US$ 2.5 to 3 trillion that cannot be filled without substantial business commitment (UNCTAD, 2014). Our discussion below focuses on civil society–business relations in an international context. Despite country-specific variations, interactions between the two sectors occur almost universally. While the frameworks discussed here appear to have considerable applicability across countries, research has shown that cultural and institutional differences affect the interaction dynamics (Austin et al., 2004; Sanborn and Portocarrero, 2005)