Private-public partnerships: Corporate responsibility strategy in food retail

Private-Public Partnerships, PPP has been pointed out as institutional conditions that may promote corporate responsibility (CR). Yet, like other relationships, PPP is assumed to rarely succeed by coincidence. A context bound comparative case analysis provides an illustration of how major food retail actors, ICA, KF-Coop & Axfood (accounting for 87% of the Swedish market) view the conditions for the development of a fruitful PPP as part of a CR-strategy. Personal interviews with top management representatives based on thematic questions in retail corporations as well as NGOs serve as primary empirics. The logic behind partnerships is simple but in reality the cases show that conditions for PPP are associated with many challenges and strategic decisions. A conscientious selection of partners, shared objectives for the partnership and a perceived win-win situation are desired conditions. A wish for exclusivity from the corporate partners on the other hand proves counterproductive for the NGOs