The paper aims to offer a starting point of a future research agenda on Cross
Sector Social Partnerships that will be informed by both theory and practice,
addressing the challenges that both business and nonprofit organisations will
face due to and as a result of their increased interactions.
In order to articulate the need for both organisational and social change
through cross sector social partnerships the paper suggests that it is required
to move towards multidimensional levels of analysis within multiple contexts
that will emphasise a historical perspective rather than an ahistorical analysis
of events outside of their context. Hence four categories are proposed in
order to group a future research agenda: context, process, content and
impacts. By extending the three levels of Pettigrew’s analysis of change the
paper suggests that there is a need to include a fourth category that refers to
the impacts/consequences of interactions. If indeed partnerships are able to
facilitate change within their context but also in their external environment
then we need to similarly study their impacts.
The paper offers research suggestions under each of the four proposed
categories and also on methodological issues within partnerships research
