Background

Achieving an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable development is today a key aspect in many businesses. Accordingly, cross-sector collaborations between businesses and NPOs have on an increasing scale been considered a powerful and unavoidable tool for creating environmental, social, and economical value simultaneously.

Problem

Relatively little is known about how the underlying dynamics of cross-sector collaborations relate to enhanced value creation. Furthermore, the terminology in previous documentation of cross-sector collaborations has been spread out and inconsistent.

Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how business-NPO collaborations increase the potential for enhanced value creation.

Method

The study has been conducted through a comparative case study of three Swedish cross-sector collaborations. Qualitative data has mainly been obtained through interviews.

Conclusions

The analysis showed that the potential for enhanced value creation increases as collaboration moves from sole-creation of value toward co-creation of value. The study found that achieving co-creation of value is facilitated by (1) an issue-salient approach to stakeholder engagement, (2) achieving mutual dependency, and (3) having sustainability itself as a central aspect of a business’ purpose, strategy, and operations.