Our multi-sited ethnographic study of a global value chain examines how power dynamics shape actors’ experience of and response to interorganizational sustainability paradoxes, i.e. persistent tensions between interdependent social and financial objectives. We distinguish between power manifesting as power-over (when it is used to control others) and as power-with (a collective empowerment based on the recognition of interdependence). Our findings reveal that oppressive power-over relationships lead to fragmented experiences of paradox, constraining actors’ collective capacity to productively respond to sustainability paradoxes. However, we also discover that power can act as a generative force for paradox management. When power-over is more balanced, mechanisms of power-with (such as strategic allying, transparent structuring and expanding structures) can emerge, leading to more collective paradox experiences and responses, which allow interorganizational actors to harness the potential of paradox as a source of collective sustainability. We generalize our findings in a process model that highlights how, in interorganizational settings, balancing power-over is not enough for proactive paradox handling. In addition, it needs to be followed up by mechanisms of power-with across levels. Our paper contributes to paradox theory and global value chain theory by developing a more nuanced understanding of the interrelationship between paradox and power, unpacking the role of power-with mechanisms for the process of recognizing interdependence and collaboratively addressing interorganizational paradoxes in global value chains.

The effectiveness of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in tackling grand social and environmental challenges depends on productive dialogue among diverse parties. Facilitating such dialogue in turn entails building common ground in form of joint knowledge, beliefs, and suppositions. To explore how such common ground can be built, we study the role of different facilitators and their strategies for bridging the perspectives of competing stakeholder groups in two contrasting MSIs. The German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles was launched in an initially hostile communicative environment, whereas the Fossil Free Sweden Initiative proceeded in a fertile communicative environment. We trace how the facilitators in these initiatives achieved common ground through three bridging strategies—communicative integration, temporal calibration, and process alignment—adapted to the communicative environments of these MSIs. In hostile communicative environments, facilitators achieve common ground by steering diverging stakeholder groups towards ‘reconciling’ their different language registers, knowledge bases, and meaning systems to ‘meet in the middle’ on points of agreement and shared interests. In fertile communicative environments characterised by greater mutual trust, facilitators can steer interactants to ‘strategically appropriate’ to the language, knowledge, and meaning system of a particular stakeholder group to win this group’s support. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of how productive multi-stakeholder dialogue can be facilitated.

One of the greatest challenges of multi-stakeholder partnerships lies in forging a shared understanding and obtaining and sustaining commitment among parties representing different interests and goals. While studies have emphasized the importance of developing shared frames for enabling collaboration and collective action through frame alignment, scant attention has been paid to how stakeholder representatives can attain commitment from their constituents “back home” to frames negotiated on their behalf. Our longitudinal process study explores how participants in the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles successfully confronted the challenge of aligning frames across multiple interaction arenas, highlighting how failing to tackle this “two-table problem” can risk partnership collapse. Our process model captures how back-and-forth interactions enabled the stretching of shared frames across interaction arenas, thereby propelling the partnership from near collapse to deepened commitments. While stretching frames heightens the risk of frame break, our analysis shows how such iterative ongoing efforts are essential for deepening commitments and advancing collaboration. We thus contribute to framing theory by highlighting how frame alignment can be achieved across multiple interaction arenas by “collaborating on the edge of failure.” We further contribute to scholarship on multiparty collaboration by unpacking the multi-table negotiation dynamics that help explain collaborative outcomes.

Mental health issues are on the rise among early career researchers (ECRs), endangering the future of academia. Horizontal linkages among ECRs can play a role in building a reliable emotional support system. We offer four suggestions to overcome existing barriers and foster these linkages. 

Processes are fundamental to supply chains and their management. Yet, traditional research approaches to supply chain management (SCM) reflect only a limited understanding of process, offering accounts that overlook the constitutive role of dynamically interrelated processes and how their interplay over time shapes the trajectories of supply chains. This article argues that a process-philosophical perspective is better suited as a starting point for identifying, analyzing, and interpreting the fluid and interwoven processes of supply chains and their co-evolving environments. Drawing on examples from SCM research, the article offers insights into the nature of process-thinking and process-theoretical assumptions, including the analytical choices and challenges entailed in process research. Besides providing methodological guidance, the article highlights how process research methods equip SCM scholars with a powerful lens for studying transformational issues in this field, including sustainability, resilience, and the use of digitalization and technology.