A third implication is the importance of policy steadfastness in long-term and slowly evolving fields like literacy and essential skills. This means that once policies are established they must be systematically adhered to in order to succeed. The evidence suggests this objective was accomplished in the foundation building and development and demonstration years and that over time this steadfastness built a productive coalition of partners committed to working in concert to advance the clearly stated literacy policy agenda of the government. During the period of program change the policy objective of achieving literacy gains in the workplace became secondary to the preoccupation with accountability.

Research

Findings from this study have provided a rich descriptive perspective of the partnership process. It has also yielded some insights of the factors that could affect the success of partnerships in this area and also some of the potential problems that could arise and mitigate this success. For example, how important is trust and honesty in the process compared to other factors, such as balance of power, building consensus on goals and visioning of the partnership? Another important implication for research is the question of common goals and shared vision of the partnership. How significant is this to successful partnerships in general? The research questions raised by the findings of this study are important as they address the relationships among these factors identified as important in affecting the success or potential failure of such partnerships. Secondly the findings have an overlay of an unfolding process. That is, partnerships evolve over time with unique consequences and outcomes that could affect the overall success of the outcome. But how are these two research issues or questions related?

One fruitful conceptual approach to linking these factors to an unfolding process is to take a life-cycle perspective. Previous research and conceptual thinking in the organizational life-cycle management literature can be a useful way to frame the discussion on research implications from the findings of this study. The notion that organizations move through a process of growth and change over time is useful to frame the unfolding process of the partnership process as it moves from initial funding to project goals to implementation to final outcomes as described in this study.

This life-cycle perspective also indicates that each phase has its own crisis potential and needed resolution in order for the growth or change to continue. This perspective supports the factors identified in the study as potentially contributing to the success of a partnership, or threatening its survival. The life-cycle perspective of the partnership process can therefore capture both the unfolding of the partnership in phases and also the key factors that could critically impinge on the further progress of the partnership in each phase such as trust, information sharing, goal consensus, power struggles and conflict. This life-cycle perspective can address all three phases, their salient factors, and initiates a theoretical understanding of why these factors are important in the partnership process.