Systems change requires complex interventions. Cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) face the daunting task of addressing complex societal problems by aligning different backgrounds, values, ideas and ...resources. A major challenge for CSPs is how to link the type of partnership to the intervention needed to drive change. Intervention strategies are thereby increasingly based on Theories of Change (ToCs). Applying ToCs is often a donor requirement, but it also reflects the ambition of a partnership to enhance its transformative potential. The current use of ToCs in partnering efforts varies greatly. There is a tendency for a linear and relatively simple use of ToCs that does limited justice to the complexity of the problems partnerships aim to address. Since partnership dynamics are already complex and challenging themselves, confusion and disagreement over the appropriate application of ToCs is likely to hamper rather than enhance the transformative potential of partnerships. We develop a complexity alignment framework and a diagnostic tool that enables partnerships to better appreciate the complexity of the context in which they operate, allowing them to adjust their learning strategy. This paper applies recent insights into how to deal with complexity from both the evaluation and theory of change fields to studies investigating the transformative capacity of partnerships. This can (1) serve as a check to define the challenges of partnering projects and (2) can help delineate the societal sources and layers of complexity that cross-sector partnerships deal with such as failure, insufficient responsibility taking and collective action problems at four phases of partnering.
Companies play a decisive role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, most of the world's sustainable development challenges are interconnected and systemic in their nature. ...How can companies ensure that their strategies effectively contribute to sustainable development? This interdisciplinary paper draws from the social‐ecological systems, corporate sustainability, and sustainability sciences literatures, in order to introduce a nexus approach to corporate sustainability. A nexus approach induces companies to assess and manage their positive and negative interactions with the SDGs—which may arise directly and indirectly—in an integrated manner. Instead of treating SDGs as isolated silos, a nexus approach aims to advance multiple SDGs simultaneously (creating “co‐benefits”) while reducing the risk that contributions to one SDG undermine progress on another (avoiding “trade‐offs”). Through managing the interactions between the SDGs, a nexus approach to corporate sustainability enables companies to improve their societal and environmental impacts. This nexus approach is a step towards developing a theory of sustainability management that helps companies improve their impacts on sustainable development. Such systemic corporate sustainability strategies are sorely needed to drive progress towards achieving the SDGs and to safeguard companies from “SDG‐washing.”
In countries where systemic inequality is pervasive, purposeful businesses that assume wider societal responsibilities try to counteract its effects by including marginalized social groups in their ...value creation processes. While current research documents a variety of business approaches for community inclusion, the nature, drivers and effectiveness of these inclusionary practices are not fully understood. We develop and empirically validate a framework of community inclusion that explicates the mechanisms through which purposeful businesses generate civic wealth – or economic and social benefits – to disadvantaged community groups. We differentiate between commercial practices that recast existent firm‐centric processes towards creating value for marginalized groups and collaborative practices that aim to devise novel, participatory processes for engaging marginalized groups. Analysis of primary data from a sample of 430 small businesses in seven African countries confirms that the effect of social purpose on civic wealth is partially mediated by the two inclusionary practices. Businesses are more likely to extend the scope of their inclusion through collaborative practices when they receive favourable external validation and when institutional voids are low. We contribute to the literature by documenting the role of social purpose in motivating the pursuit of community‐level goals and by unpacking the specific inclusionary practices used to achieve them.
Inclusive businesses that combine profit making with social impact are claimed to hold the potential for poverty alleviation while also creating new entrepreneurial and innovation opportunities. ...Current research, however, offers little insight on the processes through which for-profit business organizations introduce social innovations that can profitably create social impact. To understand how social innovations emerge and become sustained in business organizations, we studied a telecom firm in Kenya that successfully extended financial services across the country through a number of mobile banking innovations. Our qualitative analysis revealed the strong role of being embedded in local networks and structures for initiating and implementing social innovations. Strong embeddedness enhanced the pragmatic and ethical imperative for internalizing social issues, but also provided access to diverse resources for implementing and legitimizing social innovations. However, hybridization processes that emphasized social issues introduced organizational tensions by increasing goal diversity and requiring adapting organizational processes and structures. The case shows how developing a mission-driven identity enabled the sustenance of social innovations by providing a meta-narrative that bridged goal diversities and rationalized organizational change.
The alignment between corporate strategies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be an indicator of long‐term sustainability success. But which types of companies are most, and which are ...least, aligned with the SDGs? This paper scores how 67 economic activities—as a proxy for companies' operations and the goods or services they deliver—interact with 59 SDG targets. It then uses network analysis to define which activities are most and least aligned with the SDG Agenda. The results reveal four types of corporate activities, each having a strategic sustainability imperative: (i) “core activities” predominantly generate positive, while having few negative, impacts on the SDGs, challenging companies to scale their contributions to further align with the SDG Agenda; (ii) “mixed activities” have moderate/high degrees of both negative/positive impacts, posing a decoupling imperative; (iii) “opposed activities” provide few benefits yet cause significant adverse impacts, implying that companies must transform in order to better align with the SDGs; and (iv) “peripheral activities” have immaterial positive and negative impacts, creating an imperative to explore innovative avenues for creating SDG contributions. Detailed network graphs are presented that map companies' interactions with the SDGs and guide the creation of corporate sustainability strategies. Policy implications include the potential for using companies' activities as a lever for adopting a “nexus approach” to the SDGs.
While attention to the social and environmental impacts of international business (IB) is not new, the past years have seen renewed interest due to pressing global problems such as climate change and ...poverty. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are regarded as playing a specific role given their global influence and activities in which they are confronted with a range of issues, stakeholders and institutional contexts, in both home and host countries. Their potential in being not only part of the problem, but also perhaps part of the solution, is increasingly recognised and has come to the fore in research interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and sustainable development implications of IB. Systematic study and inclusion in the literature has been lacking, however. This article examines the extent to which both concepts have been addressed in IB research, and identifies some gaps in the body of knowledge and approaches so far. It also introduces recent studies that yield interesting findings, pointing at promising areas for further research.
Issue Title: Special section on Enhancing the Impact of Cross-Sector Partnerships (articles 1-5) 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.
It is well accepted that multinational enterprises (MNEs) prefer equity joint ventures (JVs) over wholly owned subsidiaries (WOSs) in foreign countries where the formal and informal external ...environment is highly uncertain. Many entry mode studies have modeled the external uncertainty faced by MNEs in foreign countries as the cultural distance to these countries (thus focusing on the informal environment), or as their political risk level (thus focusing on the formal environment). We argue that both approaches are suboptimal because (1) cultural distance not only reflects the external uncertainty associated with WOSs but also the internal uncertainty associated with JVs, and (2) political risk covers only one aspect of the formal external environment. We contend that the governance quality of foreign countries is a better proxy for external uncertainty. The lower this quality, we hypothesize, the higher the likelihood that MNEs will choose JVs over WOSs. An analysis of 231 entries by Dutch MNEs into 48 countries offers support for this hypothesis. We also find that cultural distance has no impact on entry mode choice and that political risk has the weakest impact of all aspects of governance quality.
The literature on Base of the Pyramid (BoP) strategies emphasizes that creating social value requires collaborative, multi-stakeholder business approaches. However, there is limited understanding of ...how businesses can successfully coordinate such value creation processes in the developing economies that face significant institutional voids. This study adopts a business model perspective for analyzing social value creation processes that span organizational boundaries. We introduce a novel, theoretically grounded business model framework that helps conceptualize social value by locating the various loci of value creation, and the stakeholders that partake in creating and capturing this value. We subsequently analyze the mechanisms of social value creation in M-Pesa, a renowned boundary-spanning mobile money system that has advanced financial inclusion among tens of millions of users in Kenya. The results show that information and communications technology can help advance social value creation by reducing the cost of coordinating boundary-spanning business models that integrate diverse societal stakeholders. The results further point to uneven distributional outcomes in self-governing social value creation strategies where the focal firm plays a coordinating role.
•The study examines the diffusion of mobile money innovations using mixed research method.•Latent demand and mobile phone access are not important determinants of adoption rates.•In-depth case study ...of M-Pesa in Kenya reveals the strong guiding role of the lead firm.•The results reveal trade-offs between supporting innovation and fostering competition.•The results shed light on the power-interest dynamics that shape inclusive/appropriate innovations.
Mobile money innovations are expanding rapidly in developing countries, where they appear to be on track to extend financial services to billions of unbanked populations. However, adoption rates differ significantly across countries, and the success of innovations is also radically different within countries. To understand the factors that affect the development and diffusion of mobile money services, this study uses a mixed research method that combines cross-country data of adoption rates and an in-depth case study of a successful mobile money innovation. Quantitative analysis of adoption rates across countries indicates the varying role of institutional and economic factors on the adoption and usage of mobile money innovations. We undertake an in-depth study of M-Pesa in Kenya, one of the world’s most known mobile money innovations, to gain nuanced understanding of the development and diffusion of the innovation. Analysis using the functional innovation system approach reveals the key role of the lead firm in guiding the innovation process, and the importance of a supportive regulatory environment that sought to advance financial inclusion. The results further reveal how the power and interest dynamics of key actors in the innovation system can shape the emergence of inclusive innovations that aim to address social issues.
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