Sustainability-oriented collaboration, a heterogeneous set of formal interorganizational arrangements that vary considerably in size, membership, focus and functioning, but share the same interest in addressing sustainability challenges of public concern, is becoming a mainstay of corporate agenda setting. Yet, the more firms interact on social and environmental issues, the more the burdens and tensions of collaborating for sustainability become apparent. Research and practice increasingly question whether an alliance management capability (AMC) perspective can be adopted to explain variability in collaboration effectiveness. With the aim to investigate whether, and to what extent, existing sustainability-oriented collaboration research integrates or challenges mainstream theory on AMC, we adopt a problematization method to unpack the root assumptions underlying the AMC construct. We find that self-interest in economic value creation and capture, the need for homogeneity to favour knowledge accumulation and learning on alliance management, and predictable patterns of AMC deployment are consistently assumed by scholars to predict success in alliance management. Accordingly, we analyse AMC assumptions’ current integration in the study of sustainability-oriented collaboration, conducting a systematic literature review on collaborative capabilities developed for, during and in response to sustainability challenges. In so doing, we identify what distinguishes sustainability-oriented collaboration from mainstream strategic alliances and the related implications on the collaborative capabilities firms should develop and deploy when dealing with sustainability challenges. We elaborate on these and their implications for AMC constructs to provide a future research agenda, which integrates further theoretical perspectives and broadens the scope of existing ones.

中文翻译：

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以可持续发展为导向的合作中的联盟管理能力：问题化和新的研究方向

以可持续发展为导向的合作是一套异构的正式组织间安排，其规模、成员、重点和职能差异很大，但在解决公众关注的可持续发展挑战方面有着相同的兴趣，正在成为企业议程设定的支柱。然而，企业在社会和环境问题上互动越多，可持续合作的负担和紧张就越明显。研究和实践越来越多地质疑是否可以采用联盟管理能力（AMC）视角来解释协作有效性的可变性。为了调查现有的面向可持续发展的合作研究是否以及在多大程度上整合或挑战 AMC 的主流理论，我们采用问题化方法来解开 AMC 构造背后的根本假设。我们发现，学者们一致认为，经济价值创造和获取中的自身利益、有利于联盟管理知识积累和学习的同质性需求以及可预测的 AMC 部署模式，可以预测联盟管理的成功。因此，我们分析了 AMC 假设当前在以可持续发展为导向的协作研究中的整合，对为可持续发展挑战、在可持续发展挑战期间和应对可持续发展挑战而开发的协作能力进行了系统的文献综述。在此过程中，我们确定了以可持续发展为导向的合作与主流战略联盟的区别，以及公司在应对可持续发展挑战时应发展和部署的合作能力的相关影响。我们详细阐述了这些内容及其对 AMC 结构的影响，以提供未来的研究议程，该议程整合了进一步的理论观点并拓宽了现有观点的范围。