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The aim of the SI is to bring to the fore the places in which cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) are formed; how place shapes the dynamics of CSPs, and how CSPs shape the specific settings in which they develop. The papers demonstrate that partnerships and place are intrinsically reciprocal: the morality and materiality inherent in places repeatedly reset the reference points for partners, trigger epiphanies, shift identities, and redistribute capacities to act. Place thus becomes generative of partnerships in the most profound sense: by developing an awareness of their emplacement, CSPs commit to place, and through their place-based commitments produce three intertwined modalities of place-specific ethics that bind CSPs and place: ethic of recognition, an ethic of care, and an ethic of resilience. Our authors have found vivid examples of how emplaced CSPs embody these ethics, signaling hope for the sustainability of our (always hyper-local) life-worlds.

We explore when and why MNCs invest more in collaborative R&D than domestic firms. The received wisdom in R&D research is that firms invest more in R&D when strong capabilities lead them to expect higher returns. Yet the stronger firms’ capabilities get, the greater their incentives to specialise and the lesser their incentives to collaborate. Prior research resolved this paradox by concluding that firms with strong capabilities do their own R&D, while those with weak capabilities partner with others. However, some firms choose to invest in collaborative R&D despite having strong capabilities. We discuss a multinationality-asymmetry: MNCs and domestic firms invest differentially in collaborative R&D depending on their approach to learning. Using a random sample of manufacturing firms in Japan, we hypothesise and find that MNCs invest less than domestic firms in collaborative R&D when they learn anticipatorily, more when they learn experientially, and equally when they learn vicariously. These differences are significant when and only when firms are motivated to (re)build capabilities.

Prior research flags the inherent incompatibilities between for-profit and nonprofit partners and cautions that clashing value creation logics and conflicting identities can stall social innovation in cross sector partnerships. Process narratives of successful versus unsuccessful cross sector partnerships paint a more optimistic picture, whereby the frequency, intensity, breadth, and depth of interactions may afford frame alignment despite partners’ divergent value creation approaches. However, little is known about how cross sector partners come to recognize and reconcile their divergent value creation frames in order to co-construct social value. Using longitudinal narratives of four dyads, we show that partners initially contrast their sector-embedded diagnostic frames and then work together to deliberately develop partnership-specific prognostic frames. We extend the literature on framing by developing a four-stage grounded model of frame negotiation, elasticity, plasticity, and fusion which unpacks the relational process of value creation in cross sector partnerships. Our qualitative analyses further show how partners orchestrate multilevel coordination that helps scaffold and calibrate this relational process of frame fusion.

Uncertainty is a daily presence in the real world. It affects our decision making and may have influence on cooperation. Often uncertainty is so severe that we can only predict some upper and lower bounds for the outcome of our actions, i.e., payoffs lie in some intervals. A suitable game theoretic model to support decision making in collaborative situations with interval data is that of cooperative interval games. Solution concepts that associate with each cooperative interval game sets of interval allocations with appealing properties provide a natural way to capture the uncertainty of coalition values into the players' payoffs. This paper extends interval-type core solutions for cooperative interval games by discussing the set of undominated core solutions which consists of the interval nondominated core, the square interval dominance core, and the interval dominance core. The interval nondominated core is introduced and it is shown that it coincides with the interval core. A straightforward consequence of this result is the convexity of the interval nondominated core of any cooperative interval game. A necessary and sufficient condition for the convexity of the square interval dominance core of a cooperative interval game is also provided.

The (re)distribution of collective gains and costs is a central question for individuals and organizations contemplating cooperation under uncertainty. The theory of cooperative interval games provides a new game theoretical angle and suitable tools for answering this question. This survey aims to briefly present the state-of-the-art in this young field of research, discusses how the model of cooperative interval games extends the cooperative game theory literature, and reviews its existing and potential applications in economic and operations research situations with interval data.