Multi-stakeholder Partnerships Research Articles

Perspective article: Towards a new venture science model for transforming food systems

Radical transformation of the food system is required to ensure the health of people and the planet. The implementation of policy change to improve food and nutritional security has been slow. Injection of private and public investment to stimulate innovation in complex agri-food value chains to fast-track sustainable solutions is needed. Multi-stakeholder transdisciplinary partnerships facilitate co-creation of solutions that deliver rapid transformational change to food systems. A venture science model which brings together a research organisation, industry and venture capital, to facilitate rapid innovation is discussed. This model replaces pitches to investors and narrowly-focussed industry relationships, with a collaborative opportunity-directed construction process. A case study of innovation in the alternative meat sector is provided.

Managing Climate Change: The Role of Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships in Building Climate Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa

Research increasingly suggests that climate change has intensified the frequency of droughts, floods, and other environmental disasters across sub-Saharan Africa. In response to the resulting array of climate-induced challenges, various stakeholders are working collectively to build climate resilience in rural and urban communities and trans-continentally. This paper examines key climate resilience-building projects that have been implemented across sub-Saharan Africa through multi-stakeholder partnerships. It uses a vulnerabilities assessment approach to examine the strategic value of these projects in managing the mitigation of climate shocks and long-term environmental changes. There are still many challenges to building climate resilience in the region, but through multi-stakeholder partnerships, sub-Saharan African nations are expanding their capacity to pool resources and build collective action aimed at financing and scaling up innovative climate solutions. This article contributes to ongoing interdisciplinary academic, management, and policy discourses on global climate adaptation focused on populations and landscapes most at risk.

Barriers and Considerations for Diagnosing Rare Diseases in Indigenous Populations.

Advances in omics and specifically genomic technologies are increasingly transforming rare disease diagnosis. However, the benefits of these advances are disproportionately experienced within and between populations, with Indigenous populations frequently experiencing diagnostic and therapeutic inequities. The International Rare Disease Research Consortium (IRDiRC) multi-stakeholder partnership has been advancing toward the vision of all people living with a rare disease receiving an accurate diagnosis, care, and available therapy within 1 year of coming to medical attention. In order to further progress toward this vision, IRDiRC has created a taskforce to explore the access barriers to diagnosis of rare genetic diseases faced by Indigenous peoples, with a view of developing recommendations to overcome them. Herein, we provide an overview of the state of play of current barriers and considerations identified by the taskforce, to further stimulate awareness of these issues and the passage toward solutions. We focus on analyzing barriers to accessing genetic services, participating in genomic research, and other aspects such as concerns about data sharing, the handling of biospecimens, and the importance of capacity building.

A multi-stakeholder partnership to fight food waste in the hospitality industry: a contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 12 and 17

One of society’s greatest challenges, reflected in United Nations Sustainable Development, is the issue of food waste. To address this, the hospitality industry must develop and implement multifaceted solutions from a range of stakeholders in the food supply chain. The paper describes a multi-stakeholder partnership set up to help the Dutch hospitality industry reduce food waste by means of a “Food Waste Challenge”. It reports findings from the challenge’s first edition, a large-scale field experiment with 172 participating restaurants, showing that after implementing a range of behavioural interventions, food waste decreased by 21% on average at participating restaurants with complete measurements. This research builds on scarce literature on multi-stakeholder partnerships and “green” behavioural interventions in tourism in order to battle societal problems such as food waste and thereby contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 12 and 17 and build a more sustainable hospitality industry.

From Do-It-Yourself (DIY) to Do-It-Together (DIT): Reflections on designing a citizen-driven air quality monitoring framework in Taiwan

Air pollution is a serious problem and has caused public health concerns all over the world. Despite the evidence, the preparedness and response of citizens has been limited. This underlines the importance of having sustainable air quality monitoring solutions that foster inclusion and multi-stakeholder partnerships for social-scientific interventions. This study illustrates how AirBox project has emerged in Taiwan, where makers and citizens use the sensors to sense air quality and provide the public with actionable data about their environments. The AirBox project includes elements of technology-innovation and citizen science: (1) Participatory Sensing – Static and mobile air quality sensing, (2) Open Data – Open hardware, software and access to data, (3) Co-creation Citizen Science – Citizen-led campaigns and forums, and (4) Outreach – Knowledge sharing, trust building and multi-stakeholder collaboration. The project uses a wide range of sensors to provide extendable solutions and data at fine spatio-temporal resolution. The results are highlighted using five cases studies that show how integrating social dimensions in an air quality monitoring framework can lead to public awareness, data-driven applications and environmentally sustainable cities. The multi-faceted approach highlights the effects of a bottom-up citizen science approach that considers local culture, practices and problems at grassroots.

Value chain approaches to reducing policy spillovers on international business

Government policy can add to the costs of doing international business. It can distort the construction of and raise the costs of operation of global value chains (GVCs), to the detriment of the participating economies. Given rising technological and market-driven headwinds confronting GVCs, countries seeking to attract GVC activities have greater incentives to identify and address policies that negatively affect international business investment. Cooperation of businesses with regulators, analysts, and researchers has the scope to develop better policy. This paper suggests principles for the design and operation of such cooperation, drawing on the experience with multi-stakeholder value chain partnerships and the policy responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Improving Governance of Tenure in Policy and Practice: A Conceptual Basis to Analyze Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Multi-Stakeholder Transformative Governance Illustrated with an Example from South Africa

Tenure governance is a complex and multi-dimensional issue that requires cross-sectoral and holistic approaches, gathering the resources, information and expert skills of a variety of actors while exploring innovative, polycentric multi-stakeholder governance arrangements to address collective action challenges. To do this, multi-stakeholder partnerships are formed where public and private partners pool their resources and competencies to address mutual goals more effectively. A coherent theoretical framework to analyze multi-stakeholder partnerships as part of multi-stakeholder governance is presented based on internal conditions and the external environment. The paper expands existing frameworks to analyze multi-stakeholder partnerships through introducing a new element the deliberative capacity, a decisive success factor for the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships for multi-stakeholder transformative governance at the national level. Moreover, the practical applicability of this expanded framework is illustrated in a real case example in South Africa. This country-driven, inclusive multi-stakeholder partnership process, which integrates a variety of actors in collective decision-making on the land reform process as part of a multi-stakeholder governance process, is used as an illustration of the above framework. Such a partnership linked to multi-stakeholder governance is the key instrument to attain agreement and recognition for the dedicated implementation and monitoring of the ‘Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security’ (VGGT). The investment made by the different stakeholders in this organically constituted partnership may add to a greater transformative potential in the VGGT implementation and monitoring process, and the probability that the situation on the ground will change sustainably given the explicit linkage to national governance arrangements.

The Use of Technology to Continue Learning in Palestine Disrupted with COVID-19

This qualitative study examined how decision-makers and teachers have responded to offer education for all Palestinian students at the immediate onset of the COVID-19 outbreak and how technology is being used to continue education online. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 participants from parents, teachers and decision-makers in Palestine. Interview transcripts were coded using a grounded theory design with a constant comparative method. The findings show that participants identified that technologies such as mobile devices, social media and cloud computing would be useful for design and delivery of educational materials as well as raising safety awareness, and communication during the COVID-19 pandemic in Palestine. The findings also identify various challenges including the widening of the education's digital divide and an increasingly negative attitude towards online education. The data also indicate that the first wave of the COVID-19 experience could be the roadmap for wave two and for the transition to sustainable online learning as a supplement to the traditional learning methods and not as a replacement. This research further demonstrates that teachers who are early adopters have a significant role in influencing both students and other teachers to adopt the transformation to online learning. In addition, the national and international initiatives with a multi-stakeholder partnership could provide sustained, long-term, real solutions for online learning.

Empowering the Youths through the Skilled Youth Program III as Citi Indonesia's Corporate Social Responsibility Activity

Decent Work and Economic Growth represent one of the goals of Sustainable Development Goals. The Government of Indonesia through the National Secretariat for Sustainable Development Goals has continued to launch national actions by building multi-stakeholder partnerships to encourage the achievement of these goals. Citi Indonesia, together with Indonesia Business Links, initiated a youth development and empowerment program in the area of Bekasi City, Bekasi Regency, Karawang Regency, Purwakarta Regency, and Bandung Regency. The collaboration was a Citi Indonesia Corporate Social Responsibility activity focusing on capacity building, opening job opportunities, encouraging entrepreneurship, and creating a conducive environment. Increased competence in human resources is needed especially in the current 4.0 industrial revolution era. The shift of human labour into machines with automation and the digital economy requires workers who have the intermediate ability. This happens because much low-skilled human labour has been replaced by machines. The program aimed to prepare young people to be ready to work and ready for entrepreneurship. This program was designed as a series of activities with implementation methods in the form of focus group discussions, outreach, in-class training, seminars, counselling, and field practice. The results showed an increase in the knowledge and skills of the training participants so that it is hoped they will have a greater opportunity to be employed or to become entrepreneurs.

Community resourcefulness and partnerships in rural tourism

Small enterprises play a vital role in the drive toward sustainable tourism and in the sector more broadly, and their importance is accentuated in rural contexts. Beyond entrepreneurial spirit, what are the critical success factors that allow them to flourish? This study links tourism entrepreneurship, rural development and multi-stakeholder partnerships to situate community resourcefulness as a key plank in the sustainable tourism discourse. The focus of this study is six islands that play host to the Setouchi Triennale, a large art tourism initiative in rural Japan organized to revitalize declining regions. Highly divergent outcomes between communities emerged, directing attention toward community resourcefulness, where collective action leverages agency and capacity to effect change from within. Findings show the emergence of “art businesses”, local social enterprises that function as both tourism and community assets and model sustainable development outcomes. Islands supporting such ventures reaped substantial community benefits, while islands without them struggled, their nascent tourism economies benefiting only tourists and commuter entrepreneurs. This study reveals the potential and the limitations of large-scale, multi-stakeholder tourism development initiatives that promote entrepreneurship in resource-constrained areas and highlights that community resourcefulness is the determining factor behind the success or failure in otherwise comparable communities.

Power in community-based tourism: empowerment and partnership in Bali

In a tourism industry historically dominated by outside influences, the island of Bali has striven for greater local resident involvement. Community-based tourism (CBT) has thereby become an increasingly preferred tourism development approach rooted in promises of more inclusive opportunities for community empowerment, a notion reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing upon SDG17 – Partnerships for the Goals – and specifically focusing on SDG17.9 – Capacity building, SDG17.14 – Enhancing policy coherence for sustainable development, and SDG17.16 and SDG17.17 – Multi-stakeholder partnerships, this paper investigates the “social empowerment” that results from interactions between CBT actors, and the factors that support or hinder residents’ empowerment through CBT in rural Bali. This paper presents empirical evidence from an ethnographic study in three villages at different stages of tourism development. Through a generative conceptualisation of power, embedded in the rather hierarchical Balinese socio-cultural context, this paper contributes new understandings of empowerment in CBT, particularly the extent to which partnerships and collaborations create spaces for residents’ empowerment and greater inclusion for sustainable CBT development, in line with Agenda 2030.

Perceptions of Multistakeholder Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of Irish Non-State Actors

The United Nations 2030 Agenda emphasizes the importance of multistakeholder partnerships for achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indeed, Goal 17 includes a target for national governments to promote multistakeholder partnerships between state and non-state actors. In this paper, we explore how members of civil society organizations and the private sector perceive both the possibilities and challenges of multistakeholder partnerships evolving in Ireland for achieving the SDGs. The research uses data gathered during 2018 and includes documentary research, participant observations of stakeholder forums in Ireland and the United Nations, and semi-structured interviews to address related questions. The results demonstrate that numerous challenges exist for forming multistakeholder partnerships for the SDGs, including a fragmented understanding of the Goals. They also note previous examples of successful multistakeholder partnership models, the need for more leadership from government, and an overly goal-based focus on SDG implementation by organizations as major impediments to following a multistakeholder partnership approach in the country. These findings suggest that although Goal 17 identifies multistakeholder partnerships as essential for the SDGs, they are challenging to form and require concerted actions from all state and non-state actors for SDG implementation.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships in agricultural commodity supply chains and deforestation-free commitments in the Amazon: a delicate balance

Multi-stakeholder commitments to end deforestation have increased since the UN Climate Summit (UNCS) in 2014. Despite many agreeing to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030. Brazil is missing among the NYDF 2014 signatories. In this research, we discuss historical challenges, bottlenecks, and lessons learned about deforestation-free commitments at the local level, and the establishment of sustainable agricultural product supply chains. Through secondary research analysis and the review of Brazilian environmental legislation between 2011 and 2017, we examined the interactions and dependencies of the soy and beef supply chains that access productive territorial dynamics regarding these commitments, previously the many changes that occurred in Brazil with the new government, causing the dismantling of command and control policy and institutional frameworks in the Brazilian Amazon.

Barcelona\u2019s science diplomacy: towards an ecosystem-driven internationalization strategy

Urban innovation ecosystems are set to play a prominent role in the internationalization and governance of big cities. By harboring solid scientific and technological assets and attracting both human and financial capital, they are best suited to become the pivotal actors of effective multi-stakeholder partnerships between the scientific community, public institutions, the private sector and civil society. In 2018, Barcelona’s knowledge and innovation ecosystem came together to launch a comprehensive diplomatic strategy to put the city’s science and technology at the forefront of global challenges. This paper presents the case study of Barcelona and discuss the opportunities for city-led science diplomacy as a formal, institutionalized practice aimed to reinforcing the insertion of local interests in the international scene while favouring the open interaction between the internal stakeholders involved.

Catalyzing Transformational Partnerships for the SDGs: Effectiveness and Impact of the Multi-Stakeholder Initiative El día después

Partnerships are essential to delivering the transformational change demanded by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and essential to achieving Agenda 2030. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the partnering capacity of different types of organizations so they can collaborate in multi-stakeholder partnerships. However, partnership working can be costly in terms of time and other resources and is complex. Given the urgency and importance of sustainable development, illustrated by the recent pandemic and social unrest around inequity, we focused on the creation of a partnership that became effective quickly and was able to deliver societal impact at scale. Using a case study approach, the transformational potential and the early stages of “El día después” (in English, “The day after”) were analyzed as it represents a multi-stakeholder partnership forged to frame an SDG-oriented collaborative response to the COVID-19 crisis in Spain. El día después is defined as a partnership incubator, a space where public administrations interact under conditions of equivalence with all the other stakeholders, where private companies can link their innovation processes to other SDG-committed actors and social needs and where the academic sector can participate in a sustained dialogue oriented to the action. Our findings reveal that in order to catalyze the co-creation process and achieve systemic change through a set of connected multi-stakeholder initiatives, a very flexible collaborative arrangement is required, with all partners acting as facilitators. In this way, a solid interdisciplinary team is created, united around a shared vision, with trust-based relationships and a common identity fueling impact-oriented projects targeted to advance the SDGs.

Past, Current, and Future Cancer Clinical Research Collaborations: The Case of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer.

Although collaborations between academic institutions and industry have led to important scientific breakthroughs in the discovery stage of the pharmaceutical research and development process, the role of multistakeholder partnerships in the clinical development of anticancer medicines necessitates further clarification. The benefits associated with such cooperation could be undercut by the conflicting goals and motivations of the actors included. The aim of this review was to identify and characterize past, present, and future stakeholder partnership models in cancer clinical research through the lens of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Based on the analysis of several landmark EORTC trials performed across the span of three decades, four existing models of stakeholder cooperation were delineated and characterized. Additionally, a hypothetical fifth model representing a potential future collaborative framework for cancer clinical research was formulated. These models mainly differ in terms of the nature and responsibilities of the partners included and show that clinical research partnerships in oncology have evolved over time from small‐scale academia‐industry collaborations to complex interdisciplinary cooperation involving many different stakeholders.

"Conflicted" Conceptions of Conflict of Interest: How the Commercial Sector Responses to the WHO Tool on Conflict of Interest in Nutrition Policy Are Part of Their Standard Playbook to Undermine Public Health Comment on "Towards Preventing and Managing Conflict of Interest in Nutrition Policy? An Analysis of Submissions to a Consultation on a Draft WHO Tool".

Managing conflict of interest (CoI) among the interested stake-holders in nutrition policy is a vexed and controversial issue. This commentary builds on Ralston and colleagues’ highly informative analysis of the 44 submissions to the World Health Organization (WHO) draft tool on preventing and managing CoI in national nutrition programs. The commentary proposes that the commercial sector actors are, by definition, too conflicted to objectively respond to the draft tool. The responses of the commercial sectors are predictable, as they mimic their positions during the prior negotiation for the development of the Framework for Engagement of Non-State Actors (FENSA). Their overall approach, and specific responses, are typical of the now standard methods of the ultra-processed food and beverage industry’s ‘corporate playbook.’ In addition, Ralston et al’s analysis raises a number of other issues, such as: why these corporations are so keen to be included in the world of multi-stakeholder partnerships, why so few member states responded to the draft tool, and problems with the term ‘private sector.’ The commentary ends with a suggestion for WHO to seek broader involvement from the 160+ member states who have yet to participate in the consultations regarding the draft tool.

Sustainable beekeeping, community driven-development, and tri-sector solutions with impact

Purpose As the Academy for Business in Society considers the theme “Business in Society: Measuring Impact and Creating Change,” one fundamental question emerges and that is how to collaborate with universities to create positive impact and sustainable business models. The purpose of this paper is to address that question and offer one apt illustration for how to collaborate effectively across sectors. Design/methodology/approach This paper offers a case study of the Honey Bee Initiative (HBI) from George Mason University’s School of Business. Findings In this case study, the authors discuss the Initiative’s tri-sector domestic and global partnerships, community-driven development approach and innovative solutions as an exemplar of business as a force for good. Originality/value This paper provides unique insight into how universities can partner with non-profits, business and policy leaders to effect positive change. As such, the HBI program contributes to the growing body of research on the benefits of tri-sector partnership models as a means of addressing global goals and provides a valuable case study to understand better the necessity of multi-stakeholder partnerships. Moreover, the HBI’s tri-sector partnership model offers important insights into what makes these partnerships successful and serves as a replicable model that can be instituted in other regions around the globe.

Nestlé South Africa: leading multi-stakeholder partnership response in the COVID-19 context

Learning outcomes The learning outcomes are as follows: identifying and prioritising of stakeholders’ needs during crises; gaining insight into applying contextual intelligence in leaders’ decision-making on philanthropic investments; and evaluating initiatives by differentiating between creating shared value and corporate social responsibility. Case overview/synopsis On 15 March 2020, Bruno Olierhoek, Chairman and MD, Nestlé East and Southern Africa considers his dilemma of where to focus his community support initiatives during COVID-19, which could reflect their company’s purpose of enhancing quality of life and contributing to a healthier future in their response to the crisis? Also, creating shared value (CSV) was in their DNA as a company, and they wanted to do more than philanthropic gestures; therefore, they had to decide carefully about leveraging their strategic partnerships in the relief effort. The case highlights existing community involvement projects, pre-COVID-19, which illustrate multi-stakeholder collaboration. These existing trust relationships and partnerships are then leveraged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case highlights unintended consequences of Nestlé’s gesture of donating food products to the 5,000 frontline health-care workers for specific stakeholder groups, such as the positive emotional responses of Nestlé’s own employees. These events in the case relate to existing theoretical frameworks, such as corporate citizenship which elicits pro-organisational behaviour in stakeholder groups. Complexity academic level Postgraduate programmes MBA or MPhil. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS: 7 Management Science

Implementing Community Sustainability Plans through Partnership: Examining the Relationship between Partnership Structural Features and Climate Change Mitigation Outcomes

Addressing society’s most complex challenges, such as climate change, requires bringing together stakeholders from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors. At the municipal level, multi-stakeholder partnerships are often formed to implement community sustainability plans. However, these partnerships can create new challenges, as it is cumbersome to coordinate action among a group that is made up of such diverse stakeholders. Past research suggests that it is important for these partnerships to have the appropriate structures in place to mitigate some of the coordination challenges to which they are prone. Yet, very few studies have examined the influence that different structural features have on plan outcomes. This article seeks to address this important research gap by using quantitative methods to examine five different features that can compose partnership structures—oversight, monitoring and evaluation, partner engagement, communication, and community wide-actions and their impact on climate change mitigation outcomes. Based on data collected through a global survey and publicly available greenhouse gases emission data from 72 different partnerships that implement community sustainability plans (CSPs), this study finds that structural features related to oversight and community-wide actions are positively associated with climate change mitigation outcomes. These results indicate that certain features of partnership structures may be more important for achieving desirable climate change mitigation outcomes, and thus contribute to research on collaborative governance structures and climate action.