Assessing the maturity and alignment of organisational cultures in partnership arrangements Available to Purchase

Partnerships have assumed greater importance since organisations began to downsize and concentrate their resources on core activities. Effective partnerships depend on establishing adequate levels of trust and commitment between the partners in order for each partner to achieve complementary but different objectives. The success of partnerships is dependent on the alignment and maturity of the organisations’ cultures and it has been suggested, therefore, that potential partners should assess and take account of their organisational cultures before committing to partnership arrangements. An assessment framework has been proposed that provides a measure of the maturity and alignment of organisational cultures in partnership arrangements. The utility of the framework was assessed using organisational safety cultures within three organisational settings and using employee‐employee, employee‐contractor and company‐company partnership arrangements.