ABSTRACT
The concept of 'core competence' is a powerful one for businesses' strategic development and competitive advantages. It drives restructurings, divestitures, mergers and strategic partnerships to produce new levels of profitability and shareholder value. This same concept is equally powerful when applied to working relationships between government, business and civil-society organisations. Core competences are often presented as arising from unique resources that give rise to distinct capabilities. Core competences are the basis for a mutual-gain framework for developing relationships between organisations in the several sectors. Sectors are an analytical level between the organisational and societal levels. At a societal systems level, the three sectors represent the political, social and economic systems. The core competence perspective suggests that people can both broaden the work and increase the scale of intersectoral collaborations. The generalities of the core competences analysis can be made more specific by considering four other factors in developing intersectoral collaborations.
