Creating Value in Nonprofit-Business Collaborations: New Thinking and Practice

Chapter Two

The Collaborative Value Creation Spectrum

A Deeper Understanding of Value

To achieve a deeper understanding of collaborative value creation, we need new ways of conceptualizing and analyzing it. This chapter elaborates the first component of the CVC Framework: the Collaborative Value Creation Spectrum (CVCS), which provides new conceptualization, units of analysis, and definitional terms of reference. We envision value creation as a spectrum that recognizes collaboration as an activity that can produce varying amounts of value. It serves as a mapping mechanism to help partners locate and track their value-creation efforts. The goal is to understand what it takes to move across the spectrum from low value toward ever-higher levels ...