Understanding Collaborative Value Creation by Environmental Nonprofit and Renewable Energy Business Partnerships

Abstract

Many environmental nonprofit organizations (ENPOs) seek to create sustainability value by promoting environmental principles and influencing policymakers to support pro-environmental legislation. One strategy used by ENPOs to enhance the value creation process is the development of partnerships with businesses. Semi-structured interviews with leaders of six national ENPOs in the United States were conducted to examine the sources and types of value created by collaborations with renewable energy businesses, and the partnership processes and outcomes that are most desirable. The goal was to understand how and why ENPOs seek partnerships, what the potential benefits are, and whether or not ENPO leadership orientation, as characterized by their perceptions of the political opportunity structure, political ideology, and environmental philosophy, led to different views of partnerships for sustainability value creation. The finding that differences in the partnership perspectives of the ENPO leadership did not directly link to differences in the leadership orientations suggests that none of the orientations precluded partnering in general and may even have been enablers in some cases.Résumé De nombreuses organisations environnementales à but non lucratif cherchent à créer un intérêt en matière de développement durable en promouvant les principes environnementaux et en influençant les responsables politiques pour qu'ils soutiennent une législation en faveur de l'environnement. L'une des stratégies utilisées par ces organisations pour améliorer le processus de création de cet intérêt est le développement de partenariats avec les entreprises. Des entrevues semistructurées avec les dirigeants de six organisations nationales aux É tats-Unis ont été menées pour étudier les ressources et les types d'intérêt créés par les collaborations & Travis Gliedt avec des entreprises axées sur l'énergie renouvelable, ainsi que les processus de partenariat et les résultats les plus souhaitables. L'objectif était de comprendre comment et pourquoi les organisations environnementales à but non lucratif recherchaient des partenariats, quels étaient les avantages possibles, et si oui ou non leur orientation de leadership caractérisée par leur perception de la structure des opportunités politiques, l'idéologie politique et la philosophie environnementale avaient conduit à des opinions différentes sur les partenariats pour la création d'un intérêt en matière de développement durable. La conclusion selon laquelle les différences au niveau des perspectives de partenariat de la direction des organisations environnementales à but non lucratif n'étaient pas directement liées aux différences d'orientation de direction semble indiquer qu'aucune des orientations écartées ne s'associait de manière générale et qu'il se peut même qu'elles aient été des catalyseurs dans certains cas.Zusammenfassung Viele gemeinnützige Umweltorganisationen streben einen Nachhaltigkeitswert an, indem sie sich für ökologische Prinzipien einsetzen und politische Entscheidungstr...

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