ABSTRACT

Whatever the reason for the initiation of a partnership, the essence of partnership rhetoric may be summed up in the notion of collaborative advantage. We have developed this concept to capture the idea that the advantage to be gained when members from one organization act collaboratively with members of another organization occurs only when something is achieved which could not have been achieved without the collaboration (Huxham and Macdonald 1992; Huxham 1996a). It can be argued that the achievement of collaborative advantage is the ultimate goal for all partnership initiatives and that this can be an extremely powerful way of addressing social issues. For example, the director of a not-for-profit organization recently described to us in graphic detail the story of how she had convened and led a major multi-sectoral initiative in a deprived locality of her city. The primary aim of this was to provide childcare facilities for those living in the area. Indirectly, this was intended as a significant contribution to tackling economic issues in the area through encouraging parents into employment.