Abstract Cross-sector partnerships between firms and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are emerging at an unprecedented rate to address sustainability issues. Extant research on cross-sector partnerships explains the firms' motivations to engage in partnerships but little is known about what drives the firms' partner choice. We build on firm-firm alliance research, differentiating between network-reinforcing and network-broadening strategies for finding partners. Based on a qualitative study with 33 experts from 17 frontrunner companies and 14 partnering NPOs, as well as secondary data, we assess the trade-offs between these two strategies and explore firms’ partner search and selection decisions. We advance cross-sector partnership research by proposing three drivers to explain why firms in our sample preferred to reinforce (rather than to broaden) their networks when forming additional cross-sector partnerships for sustainability. Moreover, we propose two conditions to explain why frontrunner firms often rely on opportunity-driven (rather than search-driven) partnership formation. These insights shed light on the type of formation strategy used in the context of cross-sector partnerships for sustainability.

中文翻译：

---

公司与非营利组织的合作：解释公司跨部门合作伙伴选择背后的基本原理

摘要 公司和非营利组织 (NPO) 之间的跨部门合作正在以前所未有的速度出现，以解决可持续性问题。现有的跨部门合作研究解释了公司参与合作的动机，但对推动公司选择合作伙伴的因素知之甚少。我们建立在公司-公司联盟研究的基础上，区分网络强化和网络扩展策略以寻找合作伙伴。基于对来自 17 家领先公司和 14 家合作 NPO 的 33 位专家进行的定性研究以及二手数据，我们评估了这两种策略之间的权衡，并探索了公司的合作伙伴搜索和选择决策。我们通过提出三个驱动因素来推进跨部门合作研究，以解释为什么我们样本中的公司在建立额外的跨部门合作伙伴关系以实现可持续性时更愿意加强（而不是扩大）他们的网络。此外，我们提出了两个条件来解释为什么领先企业通常依赖于机会驱动（而不是搜索驱动）的伙伴关系形成。这些见解阐明了在跨部门伙伴关系可持续发展的背景下使用的形成战略类型。