No Actor is an Island: The Role of Partnerships in Sustainable Value Chains

This research aims to explore key themes concerning partnerships between Business Actors (BAs) and Not-for-Profit Actors (NFPAs) along a Sustainable Value Chain (SVC). Forty interviews, as well as observations and documents representing (5) BA-NFPA collaborations, were done using a multiple-case approach. This research has identified two types of the key partnership-influencing themes: internally-focused and externally-focused partnership drivers and how they leverage the implementation of theSVC, including SVC approaches and governance forms. The innovative partnership approach is a novel contribution to the area of SVC research and helps the industry with decision making for creating successful SVCs amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Explicitly, findings regarding implementation and evaluation contribute to the theoretical and practical knowledge of value chains in the agricultural sector within emerging economies.