ABSTRACT:The primacy of shareholder demands in the traditional theory of the firm has typically excluded marginalised stakeholder voices. However, shareholders involved in social shareholder engagement (SSE) purport to bring these voices into corporate decision-making. In response to ethical concerns about the legitimacy of SSE, we use the lens of discourse ethics to provide a normative analysis at both action and constitutional levels. By specifying three normative questions, we extend the analysis of SSE to identify a political role for shareholders in (...) pursuit of the common good. We demonstrate the desirability for SSE to promote regulatory/institutional change to guarantee marginalised stakeholders a voice in corporate decisions that affect them. The theory of SSE we propose thus calls into question the stark separation of the political and economic spheres and reveals an underlying tension, often overlooked, within the responsible investment literature. (shrink)

Despite the acknowledged importance of the meanings that people attach to places (e.g., homes, businesses, communities), the literature on cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) provides few insights into how place influences CSPs and how CSPs influence the places where they are enacted. To address this oversight, we explore the role of place using an inductive comparative study of nine CSPs, split across five rural cooperative enterprises and four urban social enterprises that have a common private-sector partner. We inductively derive a process model (...) of place renewal that occurs through CSP growth, and changes the meanings that individuals give to their places. We utilize Penrose’s theory of firm growth to explain how rural CSPs grew in different ways than urban CSPs, and the changed meanings of place that emerged. Both rural and urban CSPs overcome initial perceived restrictions of place through a process of realizing the potential for change, reconfiguring the organization through physical and process changes, and ultimately experiencing renewal that changes how they view their places. Our study contributes to the CSP literature by acknowledging the role of place in theorizing on CSPs, and by including the agency and voice of traditionally marginalized actors in the CSP process. It also contributes to the theory of firm growth by explicitly incorporating place as an outcome of the organizational growth process. (shrink)

In light of grand societal challenges, most recently the global Covid-19 pandemic, there is a call for research on responsible leadership. While significant advances have been made in recent years towards a better understanding of the concept, a gap exists in the understanding of responsible leadership in emerging countries, specifically how leaders resolve prevalent moral dilemmas. Following Werhane, we use moral imagination as an analytical approach to analyze a dilemmatic stakeholder conflict through the lense of different responsible leadership mindsets and (...) in light of different ethical principles and moral background theories. Based on this analysis, we arrive at a tentative moral judgement, concluding that the instrumental approach is morally inferior and recommending the integrative approach as the morally superior choice. In the subsequent discussion—focussed on what “could” be done, we apply the integrative script and use moral imagination as a pathway for generating morally justifiable solutions. Through this analysis, we provide novel insights on how to apply an integrative responsible leadership approach to a stakeholder conflict situation, using the single case study to expand the responsible leadership discussion to emerging markets. (shrink)

This research uses a survey to analyze types of benefits sought by partners in cross-sector collaborations in Spain and to test and build upon theories that indicate prior collaboration experience and partner alignment will positively affect value creation through the collaboration. Using exploratory factor analysis to operationalize a broad range of potential benefits into more specific concepts, the results of this study identify distinct factors that characterize the types of benefits sought by non-profit organizations and businesses engaged in cross-sector collaborations. (...) Findings show that prior experience and alignment positively affect each factor for value creation. Prior experience is also found to influence the type of benefits sought from cross-sector collaborations and to positively affect alignment in terms of mission and strategy. Unexpectedly, the study also finds that prior experience moderates the effect of alignment on value creation. (shrink)

Employment is critical for refugees’ positive integration into a receiving country. Enabling employment requires cross-sector collaborations, that is, employers collaborating with different stakeholders such as refugees, local employees, other employers, unofficial/official supporters, and authorities. A vital element of cross-sector collaborations is trust, yet the complexity of cross-sector collaborations may challenge the formation and maintenance of trust. Following a theory elaboration approach, this qualitative study with 37 employers and 27 support workers in Germany explores how employers’ experiences in cross-sector collaborations on (...) refugees’ labor market integration affect their trust in other stakeholders in this cross-sector space. Specifically, we explored employers’ perceptions of trust breaches, and how these perceptions affect their further engagement in cross-sector collaborations on refugee integration. Based on our findings, we propose a process model that describes how unmet collaboration expectations and negative assessments of collaborators’ attitudes and behaviors lead to perceived trust breaches which, in turn, lead to employers’ hesitancy to hire refugees and/or to engage in cross-sector collaborations. In doing so, we extend existing theory on trust within organizations to the cross-sector context of refugee integration, uncovering context-specific meanings to trustworthiness dimensions and illustrating how breaches of different trustworthiness dimensions can interact. Moreover, we show how social policies, resources, and trustors’ perceived vulnerability in collaborations shape their risk perceptions. This study highlights the central role of trust for refugee integration and illustrates how missing goals and process clarity endanger sustainable collaborations. (shrink)

Relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies have been the subject of a sharply increasing amount of publications in recent years within academic business journals. In this article, we critically assess this fast-developing body of literature, which we treat as forming a ‘business and society discourse’ on NGO–business relations. Drawing on discourse theory, we examine 199 academic articles in 11 business and society, international business, and management journals. Focusing on the dominant articulations on the NGO–business relationship and key signifiers they (...) rely on, we analyze the problem-settings of articles in order to reveal the statements that are acceptable and appropriate within this field. Our threefold aim is to (1) identify dominant articulations of NGO–business relations in business and society discourse, (2) expose those articulations that are silenced or suppressed by these dominant articulations, and (3) critically assess possible power effects of these discursive dynamics in the field of discursivity. While business and society discourse on NGO–business relations overall remains open to many different articulations, we also find that those articulations that focus on NGO–business partnerships and governance initiatives tend to privilege collaborative and deliberative ways of engaging and marginalize more adversarial subject positions. We call for more recognition of the potentially constructive role that can be played by conflict. (shrink)

Cross-sector social collaborations are increasingly recognised as valuable inter-organizational arrangements that seek to combine the commercial capabilities of private sector companies with the deep knowledge of social and environmental issues enrooted in social sector organizations. In this paper we empirically examine the configurations of conditions that lead to lasting cross-sector social collaboration. Situating our enquiry in Schütz’s theory of life-worlds and the reciprocity literature, we employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyse data gathered from 60 partners in 30 cross-sector social (...) collaborations. We find two distinct types of configurational pathways leading to lasting cross-sector social collaboration which we label reciprocal economic exchange based on direct reciprocity, and reciprocal social exchange based on generalised reciprocity. The pathways vary in terms of the delivery of expected and unexpected resources and benefits. We introduce the concept of double relationality to explain the interdependence of structure and action in lasting cross sector social collaboration. (shrink)

Hunger and deprivation, lack of education, sanitation, and health care are only a few pressing issues related to poverty in developing countries. Addressing such complex social issues requires pooling complementary resources of the civil, public, and private sector. Over the last decade, stakeholders tried to cocreate innovative solutions in cross‐sector social partnerships (CSSPs) at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP), but collaboration proved to be very challenging. Practitioners become increasingly frustrated with operational differences, intransparency, and mismatched goals in partnerships. (...) This study unravels the black box of collaboration and delivers empirical insights on trust and power inCSSPsbased on social exchange theory. Structural equation modeling (SEM) enables us explore relationships beyond case‐based insights. Our rigorous empirical analysis covers 207 interorganizational relationships and outlines a crucial gatekeeping function of trust inCSSPs. Findings provide strong empirical support for conceptual works calling for an “integrative orientation” inCSSPs. Furthermore, we pinpoint the role of intermediates and draw implications for future research. (shrink)

We seek to advance place-sensitive theory on cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) by investigating how partners cope with difficult place characteristics that affect their collaboration. To this end, we conduct an in-depth case study of a disaster relief CSP in which the partners had to cope with what we label _place intensity_ of disasters, as well as with what emerged as _place diversity_ of pre-/post-disaster contexts. Our findings illustrate the collaborative effects of these different place contexts and reveal two practices of _CSP (...) place work_ by which the partners sought to leverage their cross-fertilizing potential: They used the pre-/post-disaster contexts to anticipate and prepare for the place intensity and conveyed such intensity to pre-/post-disaster contexts to manage the place diversity and sustain the collaborative commitment. These insights advance CSP research, first, by outlining places’ agentic forces and exposing their different collaborative effects. Second, by introducing practices of cognitive and emotional CSP place work, we show how partners may integrate places into their CSP management to better handle their adverse effects. (shrink)

Our paper explores the complex place-based relations of cross-sector partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners. We draw on a longitudinal in-depth case study of the Bundian Way, an Indigenous-led cross-sector partnership of over 40 organisations. Through practices of listening to history and walking ‘on Country’, the non-Indigenous partners and our team came to appreciate the indivisibility of place and time and bear witness to the intergenerational trauma of colonially imposed divisions. By combining a 45-day place-based ethnography with a 36-month participant (...) observation and repeated interviews with the Advisory Committee members, we explain how non-Indigenous members of the cross-sector partnership came to realise, and reverse, these place-time divisions. We contribute to an ethics of custodianship by first contrasting, and then combining, Indigenous and Western ways of knowing place through time. (shrink)

In this article, we suggest that one of the unexplored paths toward collaboration between firms and civil society organizations starts with confrontation or potential conflict, and that the transition toward collaboration can be further understood if one focuses on triadic relationships rather than dyadic ones. We analyze the presence of third parties and their different roles to explain how collaboration is facilitated. The article aims at bringing together the bodies of research on business–civil society confrontation and on business–civil society collaboration. (...) It offers a comparative analysis of four case studies, and proposes a typology of third parties composed of facilitating allies, participating allies, mediators, and solution seekers. We conclude with some implications for further research as well as for practice. (shrink)