Business-nonprofit engagement in sustainability-oriented innovation: What works for whom and why?

Rosina Watson, Hugh N. Wilson and Emma K. Macdonald

Journal of Business Research, 2020, vol. 119, issue C, 87-98

Abstract: Sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) involves changing products, processes, organizations and wider systems to deliver environmental, social and economic value. Nonprofit organizations can contribute the external knowledge required for SOI; however, businesses can find it difficult to engage with nonprofits due to their contrasting institutional logics. This article explores what works in these partnerships. Findings from five case studies of SOI projects involving business-nonprofit engagement are synthesized into a context-intervention-mechanism-outcome (CIMO)-logic framework. Value outcomes occur through three mechanisms where partners: 1) secure value by enforcing their own interests (agent control); 2) recombine their assets and capabilities to create value for partners, society and the environment (resource integration); and 3) navigate differences between institutional logics to enhance shared value (value empathy). The salience of contextual factors, including compatibility of what the authors term engagement logics as well as institutional logics, influences the interventions deployed, the mechanisms through which interventions operate, and outcomes. The framework offers practitioners a tool for selecting interventions in their own context.

Keywords: Cross-sector partnerships; Stakeholder engagement; Sustainability-oriented innovation; CIMO-logic; Institutional logics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318305757
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:119:y:2020:i:c:p:87-98

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.11.023

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().