Joining Forces: Creating New Partnership to Bring Greenland Forward

The interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has grown dramatically over the last three years in Greenland. A vast geographical area with a tiny population, Greenland has recently obtained self-government status and is going through a rapid development economically and socially as the country moves towards embracing extractive industries (oil, gas and mining) as a path to development. Both government, civil society and business are increasingly looking for new and innovative ways of joining forces across sectors to solve some of the country's many critical social issues. Greenlandic companies have over the last 23 years embraced the concept of strategic CSR and are increasingly engaging in cross-sector partnerships as part of their CSR strategy. The partnerships take different forms both in regards to number of partners, focus areas and level of strategic engagement. In the article, a number of different partnerships are explored along with the motivation for the different partners for engaging. Finally, the role of a central partnership broker is examined and the author suggests that this has been instrumental in ensuring the emergence of the relatively high number of partnerships in a small society.