Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – Project topics materials

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Sustainability

A cross-sector collaboration is only relevant if there is a mutually beneficial aspect to it. As profit only concerns one part in a cross-sector collaboration, the mutual goal of the collaboration concerns improving a social- and/or an environmental issue. By improving any issue through a cross-sector collaboration, the society moves towards a sustainable development and the different parties of the collaboration benefits in different ways. Therefore, in order to achieve a sustainable development, sustainability itself has to be a central aspect of a corporation’s purpose, strategy, and operations (Porter & Kramer, 2011). Hence, sustainability is the foundation for the relevance of cross-sector collaborations.

Collaborative Value Creation (CVC) Framework

In order to address the issue of inconsistency, the CVC framework developed by Austin and Seitanidi (2012a & 2012b) will serve as an analytical framework for assessing value creation in this thesis. In addition, the framework will also function as a conceptual framework. How the framework is applied in this research is further elaborated in section 7.2.3 Method for data analysis (on p. 34). The CVC framework is comprised of four components (Figure 5.5 on the next page); (1) the value creation spectrum, which provides new reference terms for defining the spectrum of value creation, (2) the collaboration stages, which reveals how value creation varies across different types of collaborative relationships, (3) the partnering process, which reveals the value creation dynamics in the formation, selection, and implementation stages, and (4) the collaboration outcomes, which categorizes the values generated internal and external to the collaboration, i.e. the outcomes on a micro (individual) level, on a meso (organizational) level, and on a macro (societal) level (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012b, p. 2-3).

Collaborative Value Creation (CVC) Framework

Component 2: Collaboration stages

As the collaboration between companies progress the value creation process moves forth as well. The collaboration continuum (CC) conceptualizes how to analyze and narrate the changing value between collaborative partners as their relationship evolves (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012a). It consists of four relationship stages; (a) philanthropic, where the collaboration is largely unilateral in nature as the business gives charitable donations to the NPO, (b) transactional, where the relationship is more of a reciprocal exchange of valuable resources, such as cause-related marketing (CRM) or sponsorships, (c) integrative, as the organizations integrate their missions, values, strategies, personnel and activities to co-create value, and (d) transformational collaborations, which has a higher level of convergence than the integrative stage as it focuses on co-creation of transformative change on a societal level (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012a). An illustration of the CC is found in Figure 5.4 on p. 14.

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Component 3: The partnering process

The partnership process analyze the value creation process through (a) partnership formation, where the potential for organizational fit is evaluated, (b) partner selection, where potential value and risk associated are taken into consideration, (c) partnership implementation, in which two levels of implementation, organizational and collaborative, are being evaluated, (d) partnership design and operations, which covers the processes that influences the execution, such as research on the procedural and substantive partnership processes. (e) Partnership institutionalization, a measure of 19 whether the partnership has accepted the partners’ structures, processes, and programs, to see whether they are fully collaborating (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012b).

Research approach

The research on CSCs is a relatively young field of studies and thus in need of field-based research that documents specific value creation pathways (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012a). Accordingly, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate how CSCs can increase the potential for enhanced value creation. The research question; ”How do cross-sector collaboration between businesses and NPOs increase the potential for enhanced value-creation?”, therefore seeks to investigate the dynamics in the processes underlying a collaboration in order to be able to draw conclusions on value creation pathways. To be able to answer to the degree of complexity the research question imposes, i.e. how CSC increases the potential for enhanced value creation, qualitative data has been gathered. The data collected is used to explore the phenomenon of CSC and identify themes and patterns. These themes and patterns are subsequently used to explain how the potential for enhanced value creation is increased. In order to make sense of the findings, existing theory is incorporated where appropriate and new theory is generated where necessary. Hence, generalizing is done from the interactions between the specific and the general. According to Saunders et. al (2012), this approach is in accordance with the abductive reasoning.

Table of contents :

1 Background
2 Problem
3 Purpose
4 Definitions of key concepts
5 Frame of reference
- 5.1 Sustainability
- 5.2 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- 5.3 Stakeholder Theory
- 5.4 Cross-sector collaboration (CSC)
- 5.5 Collaborative Value Creation (CVC) Framework
  - 5.5.1 Component 1: The value creation spectrum
  - 5.5.2 Component 2: Collaboration stages
  - 5.5.3 Component 3: The partnering process
  - 5.5.4 Component 4: The collaboration outcomes
- 5.6 Concluding remarks on the frame of reference and research question
6 Methodology
- 6.1 Research positioning
- 6.2 Research approach
- 6.3 Research strategy
  - 6.3.1 Case studies as a strategy

7 Method
- 7.1 Design of the Frame of reference section
- 7.2 Research design
  - 7.2.1 Sampling
  - 7.2.2 Methods for data collection
  - 7.2.3 Method for data analysis
8 Findings and Analysis
- 8.1 Background to each collaboration
  - 8.1.1 Case 1: Prisma Tibro & Ankarstiftelsen
  - 8.1.2 Case 2: IKEA Torsvik & Save the Children Jönköping (SC)
  - 8.1.3 Case 3: The Smiling Group (TSG) & Fairtrade Sweden
- 8.2 Categorization of the empirical findings
  - 8.2.1 Categorization of the collaboration stages
  - 8.2.2 Categorization of the collaboration outcomes
  - 8.3 Comparative analysis
  - 8.3.1 Importance of the issue-salient approach
  - 8.3.2 Importance of mutual dependency
  - 8.3.3 Importance of organizational purpose, strategy and operations
9 Conclusions
10 Reflections
11 Reference list
12 Appendices
- 12.1 Appendix 1 – Abbreviation list
- 12.2 Appendix 2 – Search words
- 12.3 Appendix 3 – Interview material