The mathematical theory of communication.

This study explores the relational processes that underpin social innovation within strategic cross-sector partnerships. Using four longitudinal narratives to document the duality of success and failure in strategic collaborations between nonprofit and for-profit organizations, the authors explain how partners navigate this duality: deliberate role calibrations help the partners sustain the momentum for success and overcome temporary failure or crossover from failure to success. Our grounded framework models three relational factors that moderate the relationship between role recalibrations and the momentum for (...) success or failure: relational attachment, a personalized reciprocal bond between partners, which provides a stabilizing buffer in the face of unexpected contingencies; partner complacency, an insufficient investment that signals temporary misalignments; and partner disillusionment, an erosion of confidence in the other partner’s commitment that diagnoses premature failure. (shrink)

Carroll (1991) encouraged researchers in Social Issues Management (SIM) to continue to measure Corporate Social Performance (CSP) from a variety of different perspectives utilizing a variety of different measures. In addition, Wolfe and Aupperle (1991) (and others) have asserted that there is no, single best way to measure CSP and that multiple measures and perspectives help develop the field. However, Pfeffer (1993) suggest that a lack of consistent measurement has constrained organization studies (and by implication, the field of social issues (...) management,) in its development as a field. It may be in the best interest of social issues management researchers to try to development a common body of measures and data. Recently, Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini & Co. (KLD — a social choice investment advisory firm) has made available their social performance database. The KLD data have potential to become a widely accepted set of CSP measures. The purpose of this paper is to present a construct validity study comparing the KLD data to other measures of CSP. (shrink)

This article articulates a conceptual framework characterizing strategic alliances for environmental improvements. Drawing on the integrative perspective of the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory, this study examines firms’ varied motivation to form strategic alliances for environmental issues and suggests that these alliances are typically either competency- or legitimacy-oriented. The author characterizes the structural configurations of these alliance types from alliance learning, partner diversity, and governance structure dimensions. These variances in structural configurations explain why competency-oriented alliances, characterized by (...) exploration learning, diverse partners, and nonequity structure, may facilitate firms to pursue more proactive environmental strategies. This conceptual framework is supported empirically by a sample of 74 firms that participated in 146 environmental alliances in the United States from 1991 to 2007. (shrink)