SECTION 5

Making Sense of the Findings through Various Models

This section of the report may be useful for readers who are looking for models to use that foster partnership development in their own associations, groups, or organizations. Since no program model existed at the outset of the Business and Labour Partnership Program, this section attempts to interpret aspects of the findings through six models or lenses. These were purposely chosen to illustrate a broad range of perspectives that could be used to understand the intricate processes and strategies of partnership development.

There are two main parts to this section. Using the data from the case study, the first part begins with three different types of interpretations which are drawn from the partnership development literature. Since various disciplines explore the details of this concept in different ways, a cross section of the literature was selected from comparative education research, community-based participatory research, and public policy research.

In the first model, The Partnership Development Continuum, the reader will see how the Business and Labour Partnership Program moved across a continuum that met partner organizations at their own particular stage and time of development. The second model, Partnership Working, provides the reader with a generic framework for examining the key ingredients of how the Business and Labour Partnership Program worked. Another lens in the section is referred to as Group Dynamics Within Partnerships. This model provides the reader with a way of viewing partnership effectiveness through group dynamics.