title: Making the most of collaboration: exploring the relationship between partnership synergy and partnership functioning.
abstract: Considering the challenges inherent to collaboration and the time it takes to achieve measurable outcomes, partnerships need a way to determine, at an early stage, whether they are making the most of collaboration. The authors have developed a new measure, partnership synergy, which assesses the degree to which a partnership's collaborative process successfully combines its participants' perspectives, knowledge, and skills. This article reports the results of a national study designed to examine the relationship between partnership synergy and six dimensions of partnership functioning: leadership, administration and management, partnership efficiency, nonfinancial resources, partner involvement challenges, and community-related challenges. Data were collected from 815 informants in 63 partnerships. Results of regression analysis conducted with partnership-level data indicated that partnership synergy was most closely related to leadership effectiveness and partnership efficiency. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Division of Public Health, The New York Academy of Medicine, New York 10029, USA. eweiss@nyam.org
authors.forename: Elisa S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Rebecca Miller
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Roz D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Lasker
mesh_terms: D018672:Community Health Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006265:Health Care Coalitions; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D007857:Leadership; D014481:United States