![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.gif)
A common agenda, which refers to partners’ shared understanding of a given problem and a joint plan to address it, is essential for the success of cross-system collaboration because it helps decrease confusion and enable goal congruence. Interdependence and trust have been identified as determinants of a common agenda as they enable partners to reach an agreement on collaborative goals. Additionally, asymmetric dependence could be a major barrier to building trust among partners as it is a source of conflicts and opportunistic behaviors. Thus, we examine the direct and indirect effects of interdependence on the development of a common agenda in child welfare cross-system collaboration through the mediating role of trust among partners.
Methods:
We analyzed the fourth round of survey data collected as part of the Regional Partnership Grants (RPG) project, aimed at supporting cross-system collaboration between child welfare and substance abuse to improve the well-being of children and families. The survey assessed communication and interactions among partner organizations and partnership outputs. The data includes responses from 80 organizations involved in 17 grantees. Interdependence was measured using three tiems that assessed the extent to which organizations were dependent on one another. Trust in partners was measured by five items. A common agenda was assessed by three items to measure the level of partners’ shared goals and plans of collaboration. An Expectation Maximum (EM) method was used to impute small missing cases. The direct and indirect impact of interdependence on a common agenda was tested using the PROCESS Macro in SPSS.
Results:
The finndings of this study indicated that the direct effect of interdependence on a common agenda was not significant (β = .06, p > .05). However, interdependence was significantly associated with trust (β = .21, p < .05), and in turn, trust was significantly associated with a common agenda (β = .35, p < .01). This indirect effect of interdependence was significant (b = .07, 95% CI = .006 - .194).
Conclusions:
This study suggests that interdependence among partner organizations can enhance the development of a common agenda by increasing the level of trust among partner organizations in cross-system collaboration. Therefore, it is important to develop effective strategies to enhance both interdependence and trustful relationships in collaboration. To increase interdependence in collaboration, partner organizations should be encouraged to perform tasks that align with their expertise. In addition, trustful relationships could be strengthened by ensuring high-quality and frequent communication, facilitating a clear understanding of each other’s expertise, strength, and contributions, and developing agreed-upon rules and norms.