…the messiness and emergence of interorganizational collaboration may be partially overcome through enacting deliberate structural choices; for example, making appropriate choices between small partnership forms for relatively contained projects, and broader, enabling or capacity building network forms for more exploratory collaborations such as research consortia, communities of practice and best practice networks… (Hibbert and Huxham, 2010)
If we are going to rebuild effectively and maximise our strengths it seems to us that working collectively has to be part of the mix going into the next phase. We have already seen new initiatives evolve during the lockdown period bringing together organisations, groups of freelancers and those whose jobs have been particularly badly affected. Organisations have worked across disciplines to deliver new health technologies. My neighbour, who’s a patisserie chef, worked throughout lockdown at a London hotel to help feed key workers. Allotment growers in Norwich are sharing their extra produce in partnership with the local foodbank to provide fresh fruit and veg boxes. Effervescent teamed up with young people and the Co-op to deliver the ‘Lonely not Alone,’ campaign, and the list goes on.
After many years of setting up, reviewing and evaluating partnership working one of the key factors from our experience is being really clear about the relationship you want to establish from the outset. There is a big difference in setting up a network to share information from that of a possible sharing of back office functions or a full merger. The focus may change over time, but it needs to be as clear as possible at any given point.
One of the most common features I have found in inter-organisational collaborations is that people are often dissatisfied with the results and that tends to stem from mixed expectations and a lack of clarity about what everyone was looking to achieve. This means they are evaluating success against a goal that not everyone had set out to achieve, something that is frustrating for all concerned.
When you start to think about levels of inter-organisational working you need to consider:
- The level of collective working you are intending – from alliance through to full on merger
- The purpose – from information sharing to efficiency savings
- The structure – loose and open to formalised roles and structures
- Processes – informal communication and power sharing to highly formalised
Collaborative endeavours are not a panacea and as you may know they are not necessarily an easy option. They are however an important tool in the toolbox during disruption and non-routine change, especially when resources are tight.
Dawn & Susan
Resources
A New Direction: Power Partnerships Resource Library: an extensive set of resources from initiation to doing more
Bridgespan: US based but has some useful tools
NESTA partnership toolkit
Governance and Consortium Working: an evaluation of Creative People and Places partnerships governance
Arts and Humanities Research Council – Partnership working in the arts and humanities: This is a slightly older guide but there may be some aspects of it that are still useful https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/guides/partnership-working-in-the-arts-and-humanities/
KCL The Art of Partnering: also slightly older but gives an evaluation of partnership working in the sector at that time
The Partnering Initiative is dedicated to multi-stakeholder partnering and has lots of case studies and partnering resources.
References
HIBBERT, P. & HUXHAM, C. 2010. The past in play: Tradition in the structures of collaboration. Organization Studies, 31, 525-554.