ALL IN THE FAMILY: SEARCHING FOR SUCCESS IN INTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS

While external partnerships between different organizations have received a great deal of recent attention, the phenomenon of internal partnering between units of the same organization has not yet been addressed in the literature. Internal partnerships promise many of the same benefits as external arrangements, yet present a different set of problems and constraints for managers. This paper examines internal relationships between libraries and information services units in U.S. institutions of higher education. Hypothesized conditions for improved performance are developed based on existing literature on external partnering. The matched pairs are then compared and correlations with perceived performance of the relationship are presented to test the hypotheses.