Intersectoral Partnerships

The last decades’ demands for sustainable development attitude have stimulated initiatives from public, private and civil society organisations (Cerin & Karlson, 2002). Such demands have made it necessary to understand the macro level failures and map the local governance arrangements that may gather efforts from different actors in order to address the sustainable development issues (Armstrong & Stratford, 2004). This is indicative of the need for collaboration between organisations, and also between different sectors of society. Intersectoral collaborative initiatives seem to be a solution to “jointly address challenges such as economic development, education, health care, poverty alleviation, community capacity building, and environmental sustainability” (Selsky & Parker, 2005, p.850).

40 According to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), “partnerships are commonly defined as voluntary and collaborative relationships between various parties, both State and non-State, in which all participants agree to work together to achieve a common purpose or undertake a specific task and to share risks, responsibilities, resources, competencies and benefits” (UNGC, 2003, p. 4). The partnerships or ‘agreements’ (Warhurst, 2001) between different sectors are commonly known as Cross-Sector Partnerships (Selsky & Parker, 2005), Multi-Party Collaboration (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004), Collaborative Governance (Huxham, Vangen, Huxham, & Eden, 2000), Strategic Partnerships (Eweje, 2006), Tri- sector Partnerships (Warhurst, 2001) and other appellations. Other authors (Tonn, 1999; Penny, Bonazzi, & Gee, 2001; Epstein, 2008; Hartman, Hofman, & Stafford, 1999; Millar, Choi, & Chen, 2004; Korten, 2001; Petschow, Rosenau, & von Weizsacker, 2005; Reed & Reed, 2009; Senge et al., 2008; Waddell & Brown, 1997) have explored collaborative governance approaches as means to address sustainable development issues.

Such collaborative partnerships appears beneficial to all the parties involved, since different perspectives over present and future issues can be raised. It is about all the participants acting positively towards aligned goals. Partnerships seem to be increasingly used as drivers for private organisation’s business strategies, since much external information from stakeholders are elemental to helping such organisations to create more value through sustainability initiatives (Cook & Barclay, 2002), and such concerns are applicable to public and civil society organisations.

Many scholars also refer to types of stakeholder engagement in discussing the relevance and effectiveness of collaborative partnerships (e.g. Banerjee, 2000, 2001, 2008; Freeman, 1984;

41 Werhane, Kelley, Hartman, Moberg, 2010; Wu & Eweje, 2008). A stakeholder is “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of an organisation’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984, p.46), such as shareholders, employees, government, suppliers, consumers, communities and any other groups or individuals of interest. Freeman is the author of the stakeholder theory, which implies that effective management demands the balanced consideration of and attention to the legitimate interests of all the stakeholders. Many authors (e.g. Marrewijk, 2003; Smith, 2010; Cuppen, Breukers, Hisschemöller, & Bergsma, 2010) also refer to stakeholder engagement as stakeholder dialogue.

The international organisation, ‘AcountAbility’ presents the strategic benefits of stakeholder engagement to organisations and sustainable development goals. It argues that stakeholder engagement “is to drive strategic direction and operational excellence for organisations and to contribute to the kind of sustainable development from which organisations, their stakeholders and wider society can benefit” (2005, p.9). This assertion is followed by three macro benefits of engaging stakeholders presented by AccountAbility: (i) Learning, (ii) innovating, and (iii) performing.

Werhane et al. (2010) has argued that “all organisations including MNEs (multinational enterprises), NGOs (non-governmental organisations), foundations, aid agencies and local governments cannot fail to take into account those who affect or are affected by their choices and actions, their internal and external stakeholders” (p.23). However, while involving stakeholders through empowerment is indeed a noble goal, one wonders how this would affect the economic performance of a firm when the stakeholders it is supposed to ‘empower’ have opposing agendas to industry (Banerjee, 2000, 2001, 2008).

42 In order to align or sustain tensions between collaborating organisations, Hardy, Lawrence, and Phillips (2006) maintain that improving conversation between organisations is crucial to developing effective collaboration. They further assert that “While the recognition of a connection to a particular issue may be enough to bring organisations together to discuss it, there is no guarantee that these organisations will necessarily identify with their partners in the collaboration or even support a collective route to a solution” (Hardy et al., 2006, p. 104).

On the path of diminishing conflicting perspectives between partnering actors, and improve the effectiveness of stakeholder engagement initiatives and sustainability accountability, the organisation AccountAbility created the AA1000 series. This series comprise standards and guidelines for solid stakeholder engagement, and sustainability accountability. According to Beckett & Jonker (2002) “the notion of accountability clearly relates to the provision of information to stakeholders, information that can be verified to build trust in its value, as the foundation of social, environmental and economic performance” (p.3). AA1000 is a useful tool for organisations of different sizes and at different stages of development in respect of their accountability and sustainability strategies (2002). It aims to secure the quality of information through engagement and regular dialogue with stakeholders, generating strategic information for organisations to address stakeholder demands and anticipate market demands. In other words, it is an accountability tool that helps the improvement of collaborative interfaces between organisations and stakeholders.

The fundamentals of collaboration are central to partnerships (Hartman, Hofman, & Stafford, 1999). According to Gray (1989), collaboration is “a process through which parties who see

43 different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible” (p.5). The arguments of Gray indicate that seeing issues and challenges through different perspectives may lead organisations to innovative and collaborative solutions.

When it comes to involving civil society in collaborative partnerships with private organisations, Banerjee (2000; 2001; 2008) warns against the real effectiveness of such partnerships, since many goals of civil society and private organisations are controversial. However, businesses seem to be focusing on partnerships with civil society organisations preferably when compared to other sectors of society (United Nations Global Compact [UNGC], 2007)

The literature has indicated many types of partnerships between different sectors, such as private and public organisations; private and civil society organisations, and public and civil society. This study focuses on the collaborative governance between the three sectors of society operating through collaborative partnerships. However, understanding how different types of partnerships (e.g. private-civil organisations) operate may generate insights about how public organisations can also participate and benefit from it.

By comprehending the drivers that instigate different sectors to develop strategic partnerships, it may facilitate an understanding of how different sectors, including civil society can collaborate with each other towards shared goals.

44 2.4.2 Drivers and Motivators for Collaborative Partnerships

The main drivers that motivate organisations from different sectors to set collaborative initiatives, such as partnerships, are based on macro-economical aspects and market pressures resulting from the globalisation process (e.g. supply chain constraints, resource competition, environmental changes), pressures from international institutions (e.g. UN; OECD), financial conditions of the market, voluntaries codes of conduct, society demands, etc. (Warhurst, 2001). Making the most out of collaborative partnerships rise the gains of collaborative advantage, gaining synergies that could not be achieved by any of the partnering organisations separately (Glasbergen, 2007).

The five forces driving industry (market) competition may indicate the main motives that lead organisations to partnering with different sectors. Such forces are (i) threat of new entrants; (ii) bargaining power of suppliers; (iii) bargaining power of buyers; (iv) threat of substitutive products and services; and (v) rivalry among existing organisations (Porter, 1980). Organisational strategy goals must consider the threats of market forces, which pressure all the sectors of society. Thus, organisations from all the sectors need to search continuously for competitive advantages in order to attract sources of capital and investments.

The main motivations for the different sectors of society to partner with other organisations are very similar when it comes to management perspectives, since all the sectors seek for leaner operations through improved effectiveness and other benefits related to reputation and right to operate (see for example Austin, 2007; Brinkerhoff, 2007; Eweje, 2006; UNGC,

45 2010; Schenini, 2000; and Warhurst, 2001). How such sustainability concerns are addressed is examined in Section 2.6, where business management tools and practices are discussed.