Cross-Sector Partnerships to Address Social Issues: Challenges to Theory and Practice

TLDR

Project‑based cross‑sector partnerships to address social issues (CSSPs) occur in four arenas—business‑nonprofit, business‑government, government‑nonprofit, and trisector—and research on CSSPs is multidisciplinary, employing resource dependence, social issues, and societal sector platforms. The article aims to consolidate recent literature on CSSPs to enhance cross‑disciplinary fertilization and highlight disciplinary developments for organizational researchers. It does so by reviewing and synthesizing literature across multiple conceptual platforms. The article identifies several future research directions for CSSP theory, process, practice, method, and critique, and highlights the societal sector platform as a particularly promising framework.

Abstract

Project-based cross-sector partnerships to address social issues (CSSPs) occur in four “arenas”: business-nonprofit, business-government, government-nonprofit, and trisector. Research on CSSPs is multidisciplinary, and different conceptual “platforms” are used: resource dependence, social issues, and societal sector platforms. This article consolidates recent literature on CSSPs to improve the potential for cross-disciplinary fertilization and especially to highlight developments in various disciplines for organizational researchers. A number of possible directions for future research on the theory, process, practice, method, and critique of CSSPs are highlighted. The societal sector platform is identified as a particularly promising framework for future research.