Private-public partnerships : Corporate responsibility strategy in food retail

Abstract

Private-Public Partnerships, PPP has been pointed out as institutional conditions that may promote corporate responsibility (CR). Yet, like other relationships, PPP is assumed to rarely succeed by coincidence. A context bound comparative case analysis provides an illustration of how major food retail actors, ICA, KF-Coop & Axfood (accounting for 87% of the Swedish market) view the conditions for the development of a fruitful PPP as part of a CR-strategy. Personal interviews with top management representatives based on thematic questions in retail corporations as well as NGOs serve as primary empirics. The logic behind partnerships is simple but in reality the cases show that conditions for PPP are associated with many challenges and strategic decisions. A conscientious selection of partners, shared objectives for the partnership and a perceived win-win situation are desired conditions. A wish for exclusivity from the corporate partners on the other hand proves counterproductive for the NGOs

Keywords

corporate responsibility; case study; food; management; PPP; private-public partnership; retail market; Sweden

Published in

International Journal of Business Excellence
2012, volume: 5, number: 1/2, pages: 5-20
Publisher: Inderscience

SLU Authors

• Aldberg, Julia

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Mark-Herbert, Cecilia

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG8 Decent work and economic growth

UKÄ Subject classification

Food Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBEX.2012.044570

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/36962