Cross-Sector Partnerships for Social–Ecological Resilience and Transformation

Abstract

In an era of social–ecological crises, resilience and transformation are closely related societal ambitions, but they can exacerbate tensions between public, private, and civil society members of cross-sector partnerships (XSPs). Bridging management and organization studies with social–ecological research, we advance a panarchy framework of adaptive cycles nested across interconnected scales, in which XSPs are embedded. As portrayed in the panarchy framework, we theorize that XSPs likely focus either on resilience or transformation, or they do both but at different scales. Although they likely face more complex coordination, XSPs striving for both resilience and transformation challenge their members to decide collectively what to maintain and change in the social–ecological context that they inhabit. We outline how the practices of sensemaking, deliberation and intervention enable XSPs to grapple with these cross-scale complexities, and we use our proposed framework to introduce the articles in this special issue. Finally, we propose interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research directions to advance both the theory and the practice of XSPs in fostering social–ecological systems resilience and transformation.

Keywords

Social–ecological systems cross-sector partnerships multistakeholder collaboration resilience transformation panarchy

This editorial is dedicated to Dr. Helen Etchanchu – a friend, colleague, scholar, activist and community leader – who co-conceived this Special Issue (SI) as a platform for advancing scholarship on organizing for sustainability. Through her life and work, Helen exemplified partnerships for social–ecological resilience and transformation – the theme of this SI. Deeply concerned yet hopeful about the planet’s future, she engaged relentlessly in civic action, innovating teaching methods and co-producing research with stakeholders.

Helen challenged the academic status quo, asking – kindly but firmly – uncomfortable questions: why do we speak of sustainability at conferences after traveling in unsustainable ways? Why invest our best energies in writing papers that are read only within echo chambers, rather than reaching broader society? After courageously facing illness for 2 years, Helen recently passed away. Her memory and legacy resonate in this editorial and in our lives. Helen’s story reminds us of the challenge – and joy – of rethinking how we live and work to build social–ecological resilience and transformation.

Introduction

The resilience and transformation of social–ecological systems (SES) are existential themes of our time. Scientists across disciplines grapple with two fundamental questions: how do SES cope with, rebound from, and adapt to shocks and crises without collapsing – what we call SES resilience (Folke et al., 2010; Linnenluecke, 2017), and how do they undergo fundamental, path-breaking positive changes – what we call SES transformation (Waddock et al., 2020; Westley et al., 2013). Responding to calls to embed ecological systems in the study of social and organizational change (Bansal & Roth, 2000; Whiteman et al., 2013), business and society researchers are now answering this challenge by placing SES at the center of their research (Grewatsch et al., 2023; Wasieleski et al., 2021).

Cross-sector partnerships (XSPs) – structured collaborations among businesses, government, and civil society actors (Selsky & Parker, 2005) – are among the most prominent organizational responses to these challenges. Research shows that XSPs have the potential to change organizations and societies (Seitanidi et al., 2010), co-create impact (van Tulder et al., 2016), enact systems change (Clarke & Crane, 2018), support social–ecological resilience (D. Dentoni et al., 2021), confront power asymmetries (Gray et al., 2022) and embed place at the core of their mission (Stadtler & Van Wassenhove, 2023).

Research on XSPs has advanced our understanding of their role in supporting social–ecological resilience and transformation, including how partnerships navigate tensions around defining their focus, allocating resources, and balancing competing stakeholder interests (Ben David & Rubel-Lifschitz, 2023; Hedberg & Lounsbury, 2021; Stadtler & Karakulak, 2022). Nevertheless, despite the worldwide adoption of XSPs to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals over the past two decades (Samuel & Clarke, 2022), the world has now exceeded seven out of nine planetary boundaries (Kitzmann et al., 2025) and global wealth inequality continues to rise sharply (Stiglitz, 2025). These trends raise critical questions about when and under what conditions the pathways and practices of XSPs effectively steer processes of social–ecological resilience and transformation. Specifically, we know little about the distinct resilience-transformation tensions that emerge when XSPs must decide which features of a SES to maintain and which require fundamental change, and how these tensions unfold differently across local, regional, and global scales.

This special issue provides a platform for the collective examination of relationships between XSPs and processes of social–ecological resilience and transformation. In particular, we propose a panarchy framework of nested adaptive cycles (Gunderson & Holling, 2002) as an analytical lens for investigating how XSPs are embedded in, and constrained by, the SES contexts they seek to influence, and how they shape processes of resilience and transformation across scales, ranging from the local to the global (Jessop et al., 2008). Within this framework, we conceptually deduce three pathways through which XSPs engage with resilience-transformation tensions: prioritizing either resilience or transformation, or pursuing both resilience and transformation across different scales. The practices of sensemaking, deliberating, and intervening serve as the microlevel mechanisms through which XSPs enact these pathways – a proposition we ground in both the panarchy framework and the empirical patterns that emerge across the contributions to this special issue.

The remainder of this editorial begins with a brief theoretical account of two bodies of literature: social–ecological studies and XSP research. This sets the stage for advancing a framework of XSPs for social–ecological resilience and transformation across scales. We then introduce the three manuscripts included in this special issue and conclude with an interdisciplinary (i.e., across scientific disciplines) and transdisciplinary (i.e., across science and practice) vision for researchers to collectively advance this field of inquiry and action.

Theoretical Background

Resilience and Transformation of SES

SES include ‘societal (human) and ecological (biophysical) subsystems in mutual interactions’ (Harrington et al., 2010, p. 2773). They highlight that humans are part of nature because social and ecological systems are entangled in an inseparable whole (Colding & Barthel, 2019). SES may be defined in terms of spatial and functional boundaries, but most SES are open systems, continuously interacting with each other. Therefore, SES are hierarchically linked across scales: smaller SES, such as wetlands or local communities, are nested within broader SES, such as river basins or national institutions. Each SES comprises interconnected natural, socio-economic, and cultural elements that define it and give it identity (Harrington et al., 2010) and is continuously adapting through social and ecological change (Berkes et al., 2008). These dynamics involve a balance between self-reinforcing feedbacks that sustain equilibrium and the formation of novel structures through interactions among subsystems (Levin, 1998).

Social–ecological resilience, as we use it in this editorial, refers to the capacity of human and natural systems to absorb shocks, adapt, and reorganize while maintaining their essential structures, functions, and identity (Folke, 2006; Holling, 1973). This definition reflects a shift in how resilience has been understood: from a static buffering capacity – the ability to absorb disturbance and return to equilibrium (Holling, 1973, 2001) – toward a dynamic process of renewal, adaptation, and reorganization in response to change (Folke, 2006; Ungar, 2018). Management studies have extended this definition further, emphasizing resilience as relational and resource-dependent (T. A. Williams et al., 2017), yet much of the work on organizational resilience has remained largely disconnected from the broader social–ecological processes in which organizations are embedded (Kennedy & Linnenluecke, 2022). Our definition bridges these traditions: it encompasses both the buffering and the adaptive dimensions of resilience, and anchors them explicitly in the entanglement of social and ecological systems.

Processes of social–ecological resilience are inextricably linked to social–ecological transformation. Transformation entails path-breaking change that result in fundamentally novel structures of interaction among ecological, economic, and social factors (Folke et al., 2010; Gunderson & Holling, 2002). Examples include cities redesigning mobility systems, agricultural sectors reorganizing around circularity, or coalitions pursuing carbon neutrality. Such local transformations can feed into broader SES resilience by fostering new structures of equilibrium in response to environmental change (Olsson et al., 2004). In essence, transformation across scales is necessary for SES to resile, just as resilience across scales is an essential goal when transforming SES. Nevertheless, processes of SES resilience and transformation create tensions among actors over what to collectively preserve and change, at which scale, and how. This special issue grapples with these tensions in and around XSPs.

XSPs in Social–Ecological Systems

Researchers have studied how partnerships emerge, operate, evolve, and terminate across sectors in relation to social–ecological issues (Stadtler et al., 2024). Cross-sectoral partners frame SES from different perspectives (Clarke & MacDonald, 2019) and organize collective action to change SES in desirable ways (Brandtner et al., 2023; Powell et al., 2018). At a local scale, XSPs focus on specific places – for example, rural communities, urban neighborhoods, homeless camps, landscapes, islands, or water basins (Brenton & Slawinski, 2023; Hamann et al., 2020) – where SES are directly experienced and managed. At a regional scale, XSPs may help respond to social–ecological crises by promoting the formation of coalitions and mobilizing innovative technologies (Henry, 2024). At a global scale, XSPs can emerge and evolve as they set shared goals and contribute to resolving global conflicts and tensions (A. Williams et al., 2026).

Partners in XSPs often engage in dialectics of collaboration and contestation (Grimm & Reinecke, 2024) both within and outside their boundaries – hence, not only with partners within XSPs but also with external actors. These dialectics arise because XSPs’ efforts to influence SES are inherently political (Wittneben et al., 2012). In these dialectics, partners bring multiple and often conflicting frames (Grimm & Reinecke, 2024), logics (Powell et al., 2018; Vogel et al., 2022), and identities (Sadri et al., 2025). Depending on how partners build and institutionalize their relationships, XSPs reinforce or challenge existing power structures within partnerships and in society at large (de Bakker et al., 2019; Gray et al., 2022). Despite these struggles, partners collaborate due to the complementarity of their resources and competencies (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012) and the legitimacy they build together vis-à-vis their stakeholders (Mena & Palazzo, 2012).

Through interactions with other societal actors, XSPs operate within a broader web of societal tensions that shape their contribution to social–ecological resilience and transformation. These tensions stem from the need to integrate competing priorities, such as aligning business and social logics (Sharma & Bansal, 2017), balancing short-term and long-term orientations (Slawinski & Bansal, 2015), operating at local versus planetary scales (A. Williams et al., 2025) and managing cooperation and competition dynamics (Stadtler & Van Wassenhove, 2016). To make sense and manage these tensions, XSPs need to consider the interrelationships, emergent processes, feedback loops, and threshold dynamics that entangle social and ecological factors beyond their members (D. Dentoni et al., 2021; Grewatsch et al., 2023). Recognizing and engaging with this complexity helps XSPs understand and intervene in complex social–ecological problems rather than tackling tensions in isolation (Schneider et al., 2017; van Tulder & Keen, 2018).

The preceding paragraphs demonstrate how the SES literature deepens our understanding of cross-scale dynamics that shape what XSPs can realistically achieve. Meanwhile, research on XSPs has begun to surface how these dynamics generate specific tensions around resilience and transformation. For instance, competing logics and power asymmetries within XSPs often determine whether partners prioritize maintaining existing social–ecological structures or pursuing more disruptive change (Gray et al., 2022; Powell et al., 2018). Short-term pressures for resilience – keeping communities, supply chains, or ecosystems functioning – frequently clash with the longer-term institutional shifts required for transformation (Slawinski & Bansal, 2015; A. Williams et al., 2026). And what counts as desirable resilience or legitimate transformation is itself contested across scales: what local actors seek to preserve may conflict with the transformative ambitions of regional or global partners (Stadtler & Van Wassenhove, 2023). Nevertheless, direct and coherent integration between these scholarly conversations remains limited. With the introduction of the following framework, this special issue seeks to take initial steps toward such integration.

A Framework on XSPs for Resilience and Transformation

Panarchy Cycles of Resilience and Transformation Across Scales

We propose a framework for studying XSPs integral to processes of SES resilience and transformation across scales. Figure 1 presents this framework, built on the panarchy model of nested adaptive cycles (Gunderson & Holling, 2002).

Figure 1.

XSPs for SES Resilience and Transformation Across Scales.

The panarchy framework describes four phases through which SES evolve: growth, conservation, release, and reorganization (Figure 1). A forest illustrates these phases intuitively. In a growth phase, a forest develops over time; in a conservation phase, it maintains structural integrity through ecological processes; in a phase of release, the forest experiences disruption through shocks such as wildfires or droughts; and in a reorganization phase, it regenerates by changing its structure. Crucially, resilience is not simply about resisting disruption – it is premised on the release and reorganization that disruption makes possible. Release and reorganization close the adaptive cycles, thus making SES bounce back to their initial conditions. Transformation, in turn, involves shifts that redirect adaptive cycles in fundamentally new directions (Olsson et al., 2022), disrupting self-reinforcing feedback loops that lock SES into established trajectories (Mair & Seelos, 2021; Westley & Antadze, 2010). Transformation may be planned or unplanned and is rarely neutral: it benefits some actors more than others, as when development programs challenge entrenched inequalities and disrupt the privileges of dominant actors (Dorado et al., 2025; Mair et al., 2016).

As Figure 1 shows, these adaptive cycles are nested across scales. Local and regional SES are embedded within – and shaped by – planetary systems, while local dynamics can in turn propagate upward. At each scale, actors may strive to remain in a conservation phase or push toward release and reorganization, depending on whether they perceive transformation as desirable. These tensions at one scale are compounded by cross-scale ones: what actors seek to preserve at one scale may conflict with transformative ambitions at another, and vice versa. The Southern Africa Food Lab illustrates this: corporate partners interpreted resilience as maintaining existing supply chains, while the initiative’s agroecological ambitions required transforming them (Hamann et al., 2025). Similarly, the EU Green Deals transformative ambitions at a global scale generated resistance from local farming communities seeking regional socioeconomic resilience in the shorter term (Matthews, 2024).

XSPs are embedded within these nested SES dynamics, though their scope varies considerably. Some XSPs focus on a specific social–ecological problem within a larger SES – such as water governance in a river basin or food security in an urban neighborhood – while others engage with SES at larger scales. In either case, XSPs do not stand outside the SES they seek to influence: they are shaped by its adaptive cycles, constrained by its power structures, and implicated in its tensions between resilience and transformation. This embeddedness is what makes the panarchy framework analytically useful for studying XSPs – it situates partnership processes within the multiscale dynamics that determine their effectiveness.

Pathways of Partnerships Supporting Resilience and/or Transformation

XSPs are typically organized around a specific societal challenge (e.g., food insecurity, climate adaptation, biodiversity loss), which situates them within a particular SES, at one or more scales. The challenge specificity of XSPs makes them typically pursue either resilience or transformation of SES. Nevertheless, seeing resilience and transformation within a cross-scale panarchy framework helps actors embrace the potential co-presence of relative stability and turbulent disruption (Wahl, 2016). For XSPs, this means that resilience and transformation can be seen as ambitions that cross-sectoral partners can pursue together across scales. Thus, building upon the panarchy framework and the XSP literature, we conceptually deduce three pathways through which XSPs engage with SES resilience and transformation across scales (Figure 1). Depending on how they frame that challenge and which scale they prioritize, XSPs follow different pathways: some focus primarily on strengthening resilience; others pursue transformation; and a third group seeks to foster resilience at one scale while driving transformation at another. These three pathways reflect distinct strategic orientations that XSPs can develop, enact, and steer over time.

As a first pathway, some XSPs primarily support SES resilience, and they commonly focus on particular scales. For instance, at the local scale, municipalities, civic associations, and local businesses collaborate before, during, and after natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, or wildfires to return to the precrisis normal. At broader scales, global partnerships among researchers, NGOs and companies coordinate efforts to make supply chains – and the regions they procure from – resilient to socioeconomic, political, and environmental shocks. For example, the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (2023) seeks to limit the potential damages of palm oil production on forests, communities, and wildlife. Similarly, the Marine Stewardship Council (2025) aims to ‘protect oceans and safeguard seafood supplies for the future’. Critics of this pathway often highlight its limited transformative ambition, noting, for example, that these initiatives do not prioritize shifting the palm oil or seafood industries away from extractive supply chains (Dorado et al., 2025; Foley & Silver, 2025; Hernández-Melgar & Cervi, 2025).

As a second pathway, some XSPs prioritize SES transformation (McNaught, 2024). A suitable example is provided by the work of Bioregional Weaving Labs, which involve public agencies, municipalities, farming associations, and civil society organizations at a regional scale (Ashoka, 2023). These Labs aim to challenge the socioeconomic, industrial, political, and cultural models that have long reinforced ecological degradation. At the global scale, the partnership between Oxfam and the Stockholm Environmental Institute collects greenhouse gas emitter data to inform governments and citizens about actors persistently impeding climate mitigation, while also advocating for policies that dismantle the structural economic inequalities interconnected with those emissions (Oxfam International, 2025). XSPs following this pathway are more likely to encounter resistance and limitations in financial and political support because they challenge existing structures and interests.

As a third pathway, some XSPs foster resilience at one scale while driving transformation at another. For instance, at the local scale, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (2025) supports communities in adapting to climate change – fostering SES resilience in specific places. At the global scale, the same partnership promotes transformative changes in food, agricultural, health, and trade policies to address the structural drivers of ecological degradation (Huyer & Obeng Adamaa, 2023). In another example, the EU’s Joint Research Centre supports partnerships that experiment with novel regulatory frameworks and policy incentives in national and subnational jurisdictions, while simultaneously aiming to build climate resilience at a European scale (Matti et al., 2025). A recurring challenge for XSPs following this pathway is the complexity of coordinating action across scales, because narratives and plans that make sense at one scale are often difficult for actors at other scales to understand and embrace.

XSP Practices for Resilience and Transformation

Since SES are dynamic – shaped by social–ecological events often beyond the control of the actors involved – the tensions that XSPs experience between SES resilience and transformation continually evolve, too. The practices taking place within XSPs (i.e., everyday actions and interactions that together constitute the process of partnering) play a significant role in how XSPs manage or seek to transcend these tensions. While these practices have been studied within XSP, they have been rarely examined in relation to broader processes of SES resilience and transformation. Drawing on the extant literature, we propose that key practices for guiding XSPs in processes of SES resilience and transformation include making sense of SES; deliberating about SES; and intervening in SES.

First, making sense of SES involves directing attention and framing issues within XSPs. These activities are illustrated as arrows from SES to XSPs in Figure 1. To broaden their focus across spatial and temporal scales (Bansal et al., 2018), XSPs engage with diverse stakeholders. Since experiences of social–ecological dynamics and problems are inherently subjective (Mair & Seelos, 2021), partners must build and maintain relationships, amplify marginalized voices, and actively listen to those most affected by the problems (D. Dentoni et al., 2018; Drimie et al., 2018). However, to reduce complexity, some XSPs may, voluntarily or involuntarily, exclude certain stakeholders’ issues as a coping mechanism. In other words, not paying attention to (or ignoring) issues of some stakeholders is often a coping mechanism to reduce tensions in XSPs. Once attention is directed to social–ecological issues, XSPs face the challenge of framing them (Klitsie et al., 2018). Whether or not XSP members collectively build shared frames, their framing efforts may either succeed or fail to influence processes toward SES resilience and transformation. Disagreements often arise regarding the causes of a social–ecological problems (Mair & Seelos, 2021).

Based on how issues are framed, XSPs then set their agendas (D. Dentoni et al., 2018) to address these issues toward SES resilience and transformation. Hence, a second set of XSP practices entails deliberating about where and how to intervene in SES. In Figure 1, they are depicted as arrows within XSPs. Power dynamics, resource differentials, and institutional rules or norms often create tensions within XSPs (Powell et al., 2018; Rey-Garcia et al., 2021). To enact just transformations, XSPs must pay close attention to power imbalances and actively work to rebalance them (Gray & Purdy, 2014). Negotiations on where and how XSPs should intervene in SES often require iterative processes to overcome deep-seated sectoral differences (A. Williams et al., 2026) and collective envisioning of desirable futures to transcend short-term clashes of interests (Bansal et al., 2022). Shared visions in XSPs also emerge from crafting narratives (Waddock et al., 2020) that seek to turn ambitions of resilience and transformation into concrete strategic plans (Clarke & Fuller, 2010). However, XSPs may sometimes also silence multivocal debates (Banerjee, 2012) that deeply challenge how partnerships seek to support SES resilience and transformation. While silencing and avoiding confrontation may accelerate XSP deliberations in the short term, these practices may risk generating unintended consequences for SES in the longer term (Powell et al., 2018).

A third set of XSP practices focuses on intervening in SES. This involves coordinating partners’ actions and resource contributions, as well as evaluating the effects of the interventions (Clarke et al., 2023). In Figure 1, these practices are depicted as arrows from XSPs to SES cycles. To maintain momentum for change, partners enforce mutual commitments and establish internal evaluation procedures (Feilhauer & Hahn, 2021) and perhaps public enforcement mechanisms subject to national jurisdictions (D. Dentoni et al., 2018). When aligned with partners’ shared frames and visions of change, these practices enhance XSP effectiveness in steering SES resilience and transformation. However, XSPs might also engage in symbolic rather than substantive interventions, focusing only on ‘low-hanging fruit’ interventions to gain external legitimacy (Garst et al., 2022) without truly supporting SES resilience and transformation. Thus, the effectiveness of XSP interventions depends on their coherence with shared goals of steering SES processes rather than just engaging in performative actions (Stadtler et al., 2024).

However, a particularly consequential and underexplored tension cuts across all of these practices: when XSPs must decide whether to prioritize maintaining and strengthening existing SES structures – fostering resilience – or disrupting them in pursuit of fundamental change – driving transformation – the competing logics, power dynamics, and scalar pressures that partners face do not point in the same direction. What counts as desirable resilience for one partner may represent an obstacle to transformation for another. These disagreements become more complicated to untangle when they unfold across different spatial and temporal scales and require more empirical analysis. The papers that compose this special issue contribute to this.

Taking Stock of the Special Issue Papers

After publishing our call for papers and organizing an online paper development workshop at the cross-sector social interactions conference in 2022, we received 26 submissions from authors based in 20 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Twelve of these papers were sent out for review, and ultimately, three were accepted. The three published papers exemplify the study of XSP practices and processes that support SES resilience and/or transformation.

Baudoin et al. (in press) zoom into the practices of French water basin committees in charge of governing river basins and coastal areas to examine their responses to emerging ecological challenges. The authors find a significant delay between the rise in basin-level temperatures and the emergence of climate change as a topic in the committees’ deliberations. This temporal gap leads to a loss of precious time in supporting water basin resilience to rising temperatures and other effects of climate change. To reduce this delay, XSP practices of building attention to biophysical cues are crucial for SES resilience. The authors theorize a three-phase process of building attention to emerging ecological issues: first, isolated mentions of issues; second, partial recognition; and, finally, systemic attention. Systemic attention requires XSPs to structure complex interactions among members, regulatory actors, and researchers operating at local, regional, national, and planetary scales. These interactions are critical for recognizing interdependencies between biophysical cues and the underlying ecological issues, and for reconciling tensions across multiple scales.

Margolis (in press) employs a multiple case study approach to analyze how eight European XSPs helped shape transformative innovation pathways toward circularity in the packaging sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, natural resource extraction, waste, and pollution. The theoretical lens of transformative innovation is particularly useful to understand SES impact as a dynamic and nonlinear process across scales. The author finds that different XSPs follow a variety of transformative pathways in their operations. Some XSPs engage in experimentation, piloting, and double-loop learning practices during their operations, hence impacting SES through the diffusion of novel structures. Others, by contrast, focus mostly on institutionalizing existing knowledge, and they consolidate pathways with more limited transformational potential.

Using a longitudinal case study of a XSP coordinating neighborhood hubs against food waste in Milan (Italy), Bartezzaghi et al. (in press) draw on resource orchestration theory to analyze how a XSP can steer transformation in its local system. The authors theorize a process through which XSPs support SES transformation, and how such efforts may emerge from an initial focus on resilience. During and after the Covid-19 crisis, the neighborhood hubs became crucial as platforms for food assistance to tackle urban food insecurity and hence to foster community resilience. However, rather than merely coping with this adversity, the case study partnership between the city public institutions, the organizations managing food banks, and the private sector evolved to develop and implement a long-term strategy to tackle food waste and food insecurity in an integrated manner. Through resource orchestration, this XSP reduced structural dependencies on corporate actors for food assistance and instead developed a multistakeholder governance and operational structure capable of coordinating previously fragmented and unstructured initiatives. SES transformation, in this case, has therefore emerged by redeploying resources to tackle the structural drivers of the wicked problems of food waste and food insecurity.

Altogether, these three papers provide sources of inspiration and illustrative examples for the framework of XSPs for SES resilience and transformation developed in this editorial. First, Baudoin et al. (in press) highlight the need for cross-scale frameworks to enable attention to and sense-making of emerging social–ecological issues. Without systemic attention across scales, societal actors risk losing precious time in recognizing cues of social–ecological crises, hence hampering efforts to foster SES resilience. Second, Margolis (in press) underlines the importance of organizational practices within XSPs for SES transformation. This micro-level focus is essential for understanding and explaining collaborative pathways that may either be transformational or perpetuate structural path-dependencies within SES. Third, Bartezzaghi et al. (2026) reveal how XSPs can foster SES transformation by building upon and orchestrating more locally embedded resilience-oriented processes. The local hubs concentrated on their neighborhoods’ resilience in a crisis and these efforts were leveraged and scaled up in transformative ways by the XSP. This underscores how resilience and transformation can co-exist and even support each other, but such synergy likely involves coordination across scales.

Future Research Avenues

Scholarship on XSPs holds considerable potential to advance our understanding of SES resilience and transformation, and vice versa. This potential is evident in two key areas, which we refer to as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways forward (Table 1). We believe that researchers in the fields of XSP and SES can and should collaborate or build upon one another’s work to pursue these ways forward in collaboration with societal actors. The cross-scale panarchy framework may serve as a valuable tool for building interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary bridges.

Table 1.

XSPs for SES Resilience and Transformation: Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Ways Forward.

Interdisciplinary ways forward		Transdisciplinary ways forward
Useful theories	Possible research questions	Suitable approaches	Possible research questions
Systems theories across social–ecological, social and socio-technical traditions (Geels, 2002; Gunderson & Holling, 2022; von Bertalanffy, 1972; for a review, see D. Dentoni et al., in press)	How can XSPs support systems equilibrium or trigger systems disequilibrium, with implications for SES resilience and transformation?	Systems understanding and analysis (T. Dentoni & Roglic, 2025; Hamann et al., 2021; Mair & Seelos, 2021; Meadows, 2015)	How can researchers help XSPs to understand social–ecological problems and to analyze the SES dynamics that generate and reproduce them?
Power theories across governance (Mair et al., 2016), environmental politics (Schlosberg, 2013) and social–ecological studies (Avelino, 2017; van Hille et al., 2021)	How do XSPs perpetuate or break through power structures that impede processes of SES resilience and transformation?	Co-creation forward between researchers and societal actors (Fazey et al., 2018; MacDonald et al., 2024; Polk, 2015; Sharma et al., 2022)	How can researchers co-design interventions for SES resilience and transformation in collaboration with societal actors in XSPs?
Paradox theories across organization and sustainability studies (Jarzabkowski et al., 2022; Sharma & Bansal, 2017; A. Williams et al., 2026)	How do XSPs navigate or transcend paradoxes between SES resilience and transformation across scales?	Action research (Sharma & Bansal 2020), including participatory (Eelderink et al., 2025) and systemic action research (Burns, 2007).	How can researchers intervene, experiment, and learn together with societal actors in XSPs as an action research cycle?
Identity theories across environmental psychology, sociology, and management studies (Howard-Grenville et al., 2013)	How do XSPs foster or hamper the building of collective identities that support SES resilience and transformation?	Design science (Gaziulusoy, 2021; Pereira et al., 2018; Smulders et al., 2025; Vervoort et al., 2015)	How can researchers develop theories as tools for XSPs to deliberate and envision their contribution to SES resilience and transformation?

Note. SES = social–ecological systems; XSP = cross-sector partnership.

Interdisciplinary approaches are essential because the complexity of SES patterns across scales calls for deep dialogue and learning across social, ecological, and technical sciences (Table 1). More specifically, much is to be gained from bringing different theoretical frameworks into conversation with each other. For a start, systems theories provide useful lenses for understanding the complex interdependencies and dynamics among managerial, social and ecological processes across scales. Power theories can help see and alter the structures and asymmetries which, within and around XSPs, hamper just processes of SES resilience and transformation. Paradox theories offer a frame to understand, navigate or transcend the tensions that develop in XSPs when they deliberate, intervene in and assess processes of SES resilience and transformation. As a final example, identity theories across organization studies, environmental psychology, and sociology can help us understand and explain why and how societal actors develop collective notions of ‘who we are’ in relation to SES processes of persistence and change. Given their importance in understanding XSP processes for SES resilience and transformation, we invite researchers to extend, test, and challenge these theories across managerial, social, and ecological sciences.

Transdisciplinary ways forward are also essential because the operational and intellectual challenges of intervening in SES require collaboration, experimentation and co-creation between researchers and societal actors in their heterogenous ways of knowing. Transdisciplinarity involves building processes of mutual learning among researchers and nonacademic actors through knowledge transferable to both scientific and societal practice, for example, in capacity building, legitimization, or empowerment (Lang et al., 2012). Transdiscipinarity helps bridge multiple ways of knowing – not just scientific, but also operational, relational, emotional, and embodied – which are needed to understand and change SES.

We highlight four transdisciplinary approaches which, in our view, hold particular potential for future research and practice (Table 1). First, the study of XSPs for SES resilience and transformation requires systems understanding and analysis in collaboration with societal actors. To tackle social–ecological problems and alter the SES that produce them, researchers and practitioners can make use of a variety of systems mapping tools and processes can assist to connect problem, situation, and causal knowledge to practice (Mair & Seelos 2021). Second, knowledge co-creation with managers and societal actors can involve action research approaches, co-designing interventions that XSPs can put into practice and test for steering processes of SES resilience and transformation (Hamann et al., 2025; Sharma et al., 2022). We recommend embracing action research not just with managers but also with heterogenous and marginalized societal groups (Drimie et al., 2018; Eelderink et al., 2025), to purposively address social–ecological problems systemically. Third, we encourage the use of design science to develop theories as tools for societal actors to make sense of their managerial and social–ecological realities (Pereira et al., 2018; Smulders et al., 2025). We invite researchers to pursue and refine these transdisciplinary avenues also in combination.

Conclusion

As planetary boundaries are increasingly breached (Kitzmann et al., 2025), the capacity of XSPs to navigate cross-scale dynamics becomes not merely academically interesting, but existentially necessary. To do so, we propose a cross-scale panarchy framework that highlights how XSPs foster SES resilience and transformation across interconnected local, regional, and global scales. We invite researchers to analyze how XSPs engage in systems-wide change processes across these SES scales through several interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways forward. To broaden societal relevance, researchers should engage in transdisciplinary research that develops tools useful for practitioners, advances action research methodologies, and co-creates knowledge with societal actors. Empirical studies from geographical contexts beyond Europe (which are currently missing in this special issue) would be particularly valuable to compare, challenge, and refine future theories of XSPs’ role in social–ecological resilience and transformation. Whether XSPs emerge as effective catalysts of social–ecological renewal or remain marginal to the systemic shifts we are facing will be determined by choices made in the coming decade: choices available to researchers and practitioners alike.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Domenico Dentoni

Martina K. Linnenluecke

Ralph Hamann

Frank G. A. de Bakker

Helen Etchanchu

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: M.K.L. receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). A.C. receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of the Government of Canada (SSHRC - 895-2026-1015).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Domenico Dentoni (PhD, Michigan State University) is a Full Professor of Business, Resilience, and Transformation and Director of the Communication and Organizing for Sustainable Transformations (COAST) Chair at MBS School of Business in Montpellier. He is the co-founder of the Systems Mapping & Co-Design Lab. His research seeks to bring back systems thinking at the core of management and organization theory and practice.

Martina K. Linnenluecke (PhD, The University of Queensland) is a Full Professor of Environmental Finance at UTS Business School, The University of Technology Sydney. Her research focuses on the strategic and financial implications of corporate adaptation and resilience to climate change impacts. She leads the Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience at UTS and closely engages with policy and industry.

Ralph Hamann is Deputy Director: Faculty & Research and a Full Professor at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. He is also co-founder and director at the Southern Africa Food Lab and the Embedding Project (Africa & Middle East), initiatives bridging research and practice.

Frank G. A. de Bakker is a Full Professor of Business and Society at IESEG School of Management in Lille, France. His research focuses on corporate political activity and on the interactions between activist groups and business firms on issues of corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

Amelia Clarke is a Full Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo in Canada. She co-leads the Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership, a cross-sector partnership to further climate mitigation in cities.

Helen Etchanchu (PhD, ESSEC Business School) was an Associate Professor and Founding Co-Director of the Communication and Organizing for Sustainable Transformations (COAST) Chair at MBS School of Business in Montpellier. Her research explored the power of language and meaning in the transofrmation of our societies. She was the co-founder of the OS4Future, an academic movement committed to climate action.

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