Intangible economy : How can investors deliver change in businesses? Lessons from nonprofit-business partnerships

Investors traditionally prioritised tangible outcomes (money, land, machinery) in order to protect their financial assets. However, the intangible economy (trust, human resources, information, reputation) that co-exists draws attention to new expectations that request the continuous, active and within the public sphere involvement of investors in order to protect their assets by prioritising intangible resources. The paper argues that investors in intangible outcomes who aim to achieve change in corporations share the same limitations within the financial and non-financial field. The case of Nonprofit-Business Partnerships is employed in order to demonstrate how change can be achieved. The role of investors is crucial in facilitating the shift from the tangible to the intangible economy. Investment in the intangible economy is a mechanism of co-determining the priority of responsibilities in the context of corporate social responsibility

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

Partner Strategic Capabilities for Capturing Value from Sustainability-Focused Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships

As social and ecological problems escalate, the role of collective capacity and knowledge is becoming more critical in reaching solutions. This capacity and knowledge are dispersed among diverse stakeholder organizations. Thus, organizations in the private, public, and civil society sectors are experiencing pressure to address these complex challenges through collaborative action in the form of multi-stakeholder partnerships. One major challenge to securing and maintaining partner engagement in these voluntary collaborative initiatives is defining the value proposition for prospective and existing partner organizations. Understanding the relationship between different forms of partner involvement and the subsequent resources that partners stand to gain is necessary to articulate the value proposition of the partnership to partners. This study conducts a survey of partner organizations from 15 different sustainability-focused multi-stakeholder partnerships in Canada. We compare three partner strategies for implementation and value capture and discover that each strategy is associated with different partner-level resource outcomes. Our findings indicate that product stewardship strategies are associated with financial and organizational capital, marketing and promotion with human capital, and internal implementation structures with shared capital. This study has implications for multi-stakeholder partnership researchers and practitioners because it suggests the possibility that certain partner-level outcomes could rely on the partner, as well as partnership implementation strategies

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