The PhD Dissertation investigates the pivotal role of relationships with nonprofits and civil society stakeholders within the sustainability transition of business enterprises. Comprising four papers, the Dissertation aims at providing answers to an overarching research question: What is the role of relationships with civil society stakeholders in the decision making of firms engaged in the sustainability transition? Paper 1 delves into the two-sided characteristics underlying the formation of business-nonprofit collaborations, shedding light on the mechanisms guiding the matching between firms and nonprofits. By applying Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resource-Based View (RBV) to explain conjointly the matching decisions of firms and nonprofits, it contributes to enriching these theories and generates valuable insights for managers of both types of organizations. It clarifies two key strategic decisions in the formation of collaborations, namely partner selection and collaboration type. Paper 2 provides exploratory insights into the signaling role of collaborations with nonprofits, disentangling it from the transformative function that operational collaborations may have for business enterprises. Further, it details the institutional conditions shaping (reinforcing or weakening) firms' incentives to emit sustainability signals through nonprofit collaborations. As a contribution to theory, it extends the theoretical framing around business-nonprofit collaborations through a novel application of signaling theory. The Dissertation’s first two chapters rely upon a robust and novel data infrastructure for mapping cross-sector collaboration between firms and nonprofits – a dataset developed to produce large-scale quantitative evidence and to enrich the scholarly debate on this topic from an empirical standpoint. Paper 3 delves into the communication of business-nonprofit collaborations by firms and civil society stakeholders. It defines five main framing dimensions – Mode of Involvement, Contextualization, Benefits, Perspective, Level of Detail – and shows how they are used by firms, nonprofit, and media agencies to frame their communications on collaborations. It then shows differences in tone according to the source and the environmental track record of discussed companies. By highlighting the crucial role of third-party monitoring by media agencies, the paper contributes to the discourse on the substance of firms’ efforts toward sustainable development and the relationship with their communication strategies. In Paper 4, the Dissertation broadens the picture, considering the institutional pressures – coming from policymakers and civil society stakeholders – that influence firms' decisions on environmentally friendly strategies, with a specific empirical focus on sewage sludge management in water utilities. Through an institutional theory lens, the study singles out how various types of pressures determine different decisions and how they intertwine within firms' decision making processes. A cohesive visual representation highlighting the overall framework of the Thesis and the contribution of individual chapters is provided. While acknowledging its possible limitations, primarily reliance on geographically bounded samples, the focus on large firms, a still incomplete integration of different underlying theoretical lenses, and difficulties in gathering large-scale reliable data especially on the civil society and nonprofit side, the Dissertation provides valuable insights into business relationships with civil society and their profound implications for sustainability transitions.
La tesi di dottorato esamina il ruolo fondamentale delle relazioni con le organizzazioni non profit e gli stakeholder della società civile nella transizione verso la sostenibilità delle imprese. Composta da quattro papers, la tesi mira a fornire risposte a una domanda di ricerca generale: Qual è il ruolo delle relazioni con gli stakeholder della società civile nel processo decisionale delle imprese impegnate nella transizione verso la sostenibilità? Il paper 1 si addentra nelle caratteristiche bilaterali alla base della formazione di collaborazioni tra imprese e organizzazioni non profit, facendo luce sui meccanismi che guidano tali collaborazioni. Applicando le teorie Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) e la Resource Based View (RBV) per spiegare congiuntamente le decisioni di matching di imprese e non profit, il paper contribuisce ad arricchire queste teorie e genera risultati di valore per i manager di entrambi i tipi di organizzazioni. Inoltre, il paper chiarisce due decisioni strategiche chiave nella formazione di tali collaborazioni, ovvero la selezione dei partner e il tipo di collaborazione. Il paper 2 fornisce risultati esplorativi sul ruolo di segnalazione delle collaborazioni con le organizzazioni non profit per le imprese, distinguendolo dalla funzione trasformativa potenzialmente assunta dalle collaborazioni operative. Inoltre, dettaglia le condizioni istituzionali che moderano (rafforzando o indebolendo) gli incentivi delle imprese a emettere segnali di sostenibilità attraverso collaborazioni non profit. Come contributo alla teoria, estende il quadro teorico sulle collaborazioni impresa-non profit attraverso una nuova applicazione della signaling theory. I primi due capitoli della tesi si basano su una solida e innovativa infrastruttura di dati per mappare la collaborazione cross-settoriale tra imprese e organizzazioni non profit - un dataset sviluppato per produrre evidenze quantitative su larga scala e per arricchire il dibattito accademico su questo argomento da un punto di vista empirico. Il paper 3 si addentra nella comunicazione delle collaborazioni business-non profit da parte delle imprese e degli stakeholder della società civile. Definisce cinque principali dimensioni di inquadramento - Modalità di Coinvolgimento, Contestualizzazione, Benefici, Prospettiva, Livello di Dettaglio - e mostra come vengono utilizzate da imprese, organizzazioni non profit e media per inquadrare le loro comunicazioni sulle collaborazioni. Mostra poi le differenze di tono a seconda della fonte e del track record ambientale delle aziende discusse. Evidenziando il ruolo cruciale del monitoraggio di terze parti da parte dei media, l'articolo contribuisce alla conversazione sulla sostanza degli sforzi delle imprese verso lo sviluppo sostenibile e la relazione con le loro strategie di comunicazione. Nel paper 4, la tesi allarga il quadro, considerando le pressioni istituzionali - provenienti dai policymakers e dagli stakeholder della società civile - che influenzano le decisioni delle imprese sulle strategie ecologiche, con un focus empirico specifico sulla gestione dei fanghi di depurazione nelle utilities idriche. Attraverso una lente teorica basata sulla institutional theory, lo studio individua come vari tipi di pressioni determinino decisioni diverse e come esse si intreccino nei processi decisionali delle imprese. Viene fornita una rappresentazione visiva concisa che evidenzia il quadro generale della tesi e il contributo dei singoli capitoli. Pur riconoscendo i suoi possibili limiti, principalmente il ricorso a campioni geograficamente limitati, l'attenzione alle grandi imprese, un'integrazione ancora incompleta di diverse lenti teoriche sottostanti e le difficoltà nel raccogliere dati affidabili su larga scala, soprattutto dal lato della società civile e delle organizzazioni non profit, la tesi fornisce preziosi risultati sulle relazioni delle imprese con la società civile e le loro profonde implicazioni per la transizione delle imprese verso la sostenibilità.
Business relationships with nonprofits and civil society stakeholders in the sustainability transition
Rizzuni, Andrea Matteo
2023/2024
Abstract
The PhD Dissertation investigates the pivotal role of relationships with nonprofits and civil society stakeholders within the sustainability transition of business enterprises. Comprising four papers, the Dissertation aims at providing answers to an overarching research question: What is the role of relationships with civil society stakeholders in the decision making of firms engaged in the sustainability transition? Paper 1 delves into the two-sided characteristics underlying the formation of business-nonprofit collaborations, shedding light on the mechanisms guiding the matching between firms and nonprofits. By applying Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resource-Based View (RBV) to explain conjointly the matching decisions of firms and nonprofits, it contributes to enriching these theories and generates valuable insights for managers of both types of organizations. It clarifies two key strategic decisions in the formation of collaborations, namely partner selection and collaboration type. Paper 2 provides exploratory insights into the signaling role of collaborations with nonprofits, disentangling it from the transformative function that operational collaborations may have for business enterprises. Further, it details the institutional conditions shaping (reinforcing or weakening) firms' incentives to emit sustainability signals through nonprofit collaborations. As a contribution to theory, it extends the theoretical framing around business-nonprofit collaborations through a novel application of signaling theory. The Dissertation’s first two chapters rely upon a robust and novel data infrastructure for mapping cross-sector collaboration between firms and nonprofits – a dataset developed to produce large-scale quantitative evidence and to enrich the scholarly debate on this topic from an empirical standpoint. Paper 3 delves into the communication of business-nonprofit collaborations by firms and civil society stakeholders. It defines five main framing dimensions – Mode of Involvement, Contextualization, Benefits, Perspective, Level of Detail – and shows how they are used by firms, nonprofit, and media agencies to frame their communications on collaborations. It then shows differences in tone according to the source and the environmental track record of discussed companies. By highlighting the crucial role of third-party monitoring by media agencies, the paper contributes to the discourse on the substance of firms’ efforts toward sustainable development and the relationship with their communication strategies. In Paper 4, the Dissertation broadens the picture, considering the institutional pressures – coming from policymakers and civil society stakeholders – that influence firms' decisions on environmentally friendly strategies, with a specific empirical focus on sewage sludge management in water utilities. Through an institutional theory lens, the study singles out how various types of pressures determine different decisions and how they intertwine within firms' decision making processes. A cohesive visual representation highlighting the overall framework of the Thesis and the contribution of individual chapters is provided. While acknowledging its possible limitations, primarily reliance on geographically bounded samples, the focus on large firms, a still incomplete integration of different underlying theoretical lenses, and difficulties in gathering large-scale reliable data especially on the civil society and nonprofit side, the Dissertation provides valuable insights into business relationships with civil society and their profound implications for sustainability transitions.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/224572