ABSTRACT
With the growing societal demand for responsible and ethical businesses, businesses are actively seeking innovative ways to incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities by forming partnerships with nonprofits. Forming CSR partnerships is considered a win–win solution that benefits businesses, nonprofit organizations (NPOs), and society. However, the role and impact of communication have not been adequately addressed in the current CSR partnership scholarship. Most studies have only captured the pattern of CSR partnerships in a dyadic setting between the businesses and NPOs. However, CSR partnerships are commonly presented to the public in a portfolio format, including the focal organization's relations with multiple partners. The growing practice of forming a CSR partnership portfolio calls for a deeper understanding of multi-stakeholder relationship management as well as strategic development and disclosure. This chapter takes a network perspective to examine the growing phenomenon of multi-stakeholder relationship management in the context of CSR partnership portfolio communication. Specifically, it proposes a typology of portfolio configurations and provides suggestions for future CSR partnership communication research.
