企業の社会的事業における協働戦略

抄録

In recent years, collaboration has become a widely adopted vehicle for corporations to address social issues. In this paper, collaborations that attempt to solve social problems are called "social collaboration". This paper focuses on such collaborations, especially collaborative strategy of corporate social business. A purpose of this paper is to discuss following two research questions: (1) why do corporations collaborate with other organizations when they attempt to address social problems, and (2) how do corporations manage partner relationships to make social collaborations more effective. First, this paper proposes the framework to explore such research questions based on interorganizational collaboration theory and previous studies on social collaboration. While the studies on social collaboration are increasing, these studies have little focused on the collaboration management. To address such issue, this paper adopts the process approach that focuses on developmental process of collaboration consisting of the three stages of formation, operation, and outcome evaluation. That is, key issues of collaboration management, such as partner selection, collaboration design, relationship management, and evaluation, will be examined through developmental process of collaboration. To understand these key issues pertaining to three stages of collaboration process would provide more systematic approach to make social collaboration effective. Next, this paper has conducted a case study on collaborative strategy of social business. The case is that N.I. TEIJIN SHOJI CO., LTD. and Peace Winds Japan (NPO) coproduce and co-sell social product that provides shelter to sufferers. The results show following two findings: (1) internal factors, such as complementary resource, compatible strategic purpose, and common social mission, can facilitate collaboration formation, and (2) corporations need to address comprehensively key issues of collaboration management to achieve successful social collaboration. Finally, some key implications for research on social collaboration and limitations of this paper are discussed.