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To assess which partnerships were most critical during the recovery planning process following Hurricanes Maria and Irma. We discuss the roles and impact of different types of partners, barriers and facilitators to partnerships and lessons in collaboration during the development of the economic and disaster recovery plan for Puerto Rico.

The Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) was tasked with assisting the Puerto Rican government with an assessment of damages from Hurricanes Maria and Irma and the development of the Recovery Plan. During the process, a small team compiled and coded a database of meetings with non-HSOAC partners. The team was divided into sector teams that mirrored FEMA’s Recovery Support Functions. Each sector completed two surveys identifying high impact partners and their roles and contributions, as well as barriers and facilitators to partnerships.

A total of 1,382 engagements were recorded across all sectors over seven months. The most frequently identified high impact partners were federal and Puerto Rican governmental organizations partners. NGOs and nonprofits were noted as key partners in obtaining community perspective. Sector teams cited a lack of trust and difficulty identifying partners as barriers to partner engagement. Given the expedited nature of disaster response, establishing partnerships before disasters occur may help facilitate community input. Early networking, increased transparency and defining roles and responsibilities may increase trust and effectiveness among partnerships.

To our knowledge, this is one of the few studies that quantifies and illustrates the partnerships formed and their contributions during recovery planning, and lessons learned.

Research on strategic alliances is concerned with two issues: continuation and reconfiguration. Building on prior research that examines the two issues separately, the paper studies them simultaneously. This paper aims to investigate how strategic alliances may exert the synergetic effect between dynamics and stability as well as to discuss the dynamic evolution process and influence factors of strategic alliances.

This paper describes the construction of a two-party evolutionary game model of alliance and partners. The model is used to analyze the evolution process of synergetic mechanism to determine when to terminate and when to continue with a partnership. Further, numerical simulation is used to quantify the results and to gain insight into the effects of various factors on the dynamic evolution of the synergetic mechanism.

This paper reveals several synergetic states of dynamics and stability in the alliances. The results show that synergy states are positively affected by the collaborative innovation benefits, alliance management capability, the intensity of intellectual property protection, liquidated damages and reputation losses, and negatively affected by the absorptive capacity of partners.

The study helps the alliance to achieve long-term development as well as to balance the paradoxical relationship. The results suggest that managers of strategic alliances should focus on building strong and long-term relationships in order to achieve high performance innovations. Managers should also pay close attention to their partners’ behaviors in previous alliances.

This paper provides new insights into the paradoxical relationship in alliance by revealing the evolution of synergetic mechanism between dynamics and stability. The results remind alliances to understand the relationship between dynamics and stability and to notice the influence factors of synergistic effects when they are making decisions.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of gender diversity in the composition of engagement auditors on the disclosure of key audit matters (KAMs) in a dual-signature environment.

The authors used the unique institutional setup of Taiwan, where the law requires that audit reports be signed by two audit partners. The authors examined the effect of gender diversity composition among engagement auditors on KAM disclosure, considering behavioral differences between female and male auditors.

The empirical results indicate that gender diversity composition in the dual-signature environment is associated with the number of disclosed KAM items (KAMIT) and the length of the explanations for each KAMIT. Furthermore, the authors found that gender diversity composition, particularly when led by female audit partners, has a more pronounced impact on the explanation of each KAMIT rather than on the disclosure of KAMIT. The authors also noted that the moderating effect of audit firm specialization does not influence the gender diversity composition of audit partners in disclosing KAMs.

This study’s empirical findings demonstrate that the interaction between different gender compositions in a dual-signature environment influences KAM disclosure.

This study aims to explore the direct and indirect effects of sales opportunism and sales conflict as well as of non-economic and economic satisfaction in business-to-business (B2B) sales relationships. This understanding offers B2B buyers enhanced knowledge of sales business expectations towards sustainable business relationships in the future.

Through self-administered questionnaires, data were obtained from 237 sales or marketing managers/directors of small- and medium-sized companies across industries in Spain, who were randomly contacted via LinkedIn. The multivariate analysis of measurement and structural models was based on IBM SPSS Amos 27.

The study confirms that sales opportunism positively affects sales conflict. Moreover, sales opportunism is negatively associated with non-economic sales satisfaction, whereas non-economic sales satisfaction is positively associated with economic sales satisfaction. Consequently, if all associates are pleased with the relationship and the gains it can provide, a long-standing orientation can be achieved.

The study expands existing theory on seller–buyer relationships in a B2B context. It contextualises direct and indirect relationships between two antecedents (sales opportunism and sales conflict) and two postcedents (economic sales satisfaction and non-economic sales satisfaction) in sales business–buyer settings.

The study guides buyers in B2B relationships towards an improved understanding of how sales businesses perceive opportunism and conflict (as negative precursors) to impact non-economic satisfaction and how it can influence economic satisfaction.

Most studies explore B2B relationship building from the perspective of the buyer, thereby creating a shortfall in developing an understanding of all partner expectations in B2B relational intent. Moreover, the measurement of satisfaction as a multidimensional construct secured the integration of non-economic satisfaction and economic satisfaction within a single model allowing the constructs measured in this study to be holistically assessed.

Although corporate real estate organisations use partnering and alliances extensively, many alliances fail or fall short of expectations. Such shortfalls result from corporate real estate’s traditional emphasis on making the deal rather than on managing it for the long term, the limited skills set that even experienced managers possess when it comes to true collaboration, and the sheer complexity of managing alliances. To improve partnering results, the author outlines a four point plan based on successful partnering methods used in large construction projects: (1) bring all the key players together specifically to address and manage communications issues, (2) clarify partnering goals by writing and signing a Goals Statement, (3) develop specific communications procedures and (4) build mutual understanding and trust with tools such as the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator and collaborative communications skills.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of auditor specialization, at both the partner and office levels, on audit quality within a developed market (the USA).

This study exploits the environment created when several large accounting firms purchased select Andersen offices following the firm's demise in 2002. OLS regressions were estimated from a sample of companies that assumingly followed their Andersen partner to the purchased accounting firm to examine the association between abnormal discretionary accruals and auditor specialization at both the office and partner levels.

The descriptive statistics and regression results show a significant negative relation between audit partner specialization and abnormal accruals. Furthermore, the results suggest that partner level specialization has a greater effect on audit quality than that of office level specialization.

This study contributes to the literature by examining the effects of auditor specialization at both the office and partner levels on audit quality within a developed market. The results of this study should be of interest to academics, investors, and regulators and help them in their assessments of auditor quality.

In 2000, the concept of partnering was introduced as a pilot project in an in‐house contract for operation and maintenance of railway infrastructure. A facilitator introduced the client, the Swedish National Rail Administration (Banverket), and the in‐house contractor, Banverket Produktion in partnering procedures before a contract was finalised. A contract with a target cost combined with incentives was negotiated. The partnering process was started by forming a team consisting of key personnel from the client and contractor. A charter containing mutual objectives was developed. Expected targets from the partnering process were achieved during 2001 and Banverket has decided to continue with the partnering process during the current year 2002 and expects to improve upon results to date. This paper presents the experiences from the implementation of partnering process to enhance the effectiveness of maintenance processes in order to enhance railway network efficiency in Sweden.

Highlights the reasons for the move to HR partnering and the advantages it can bring.

Suggests three essentials of successful HR partnering – understanding, resources and credibility. Explores each in some depth, and illustrates them with cases based on the experience of European companies.

Advances the view that there is no one best way to implement partnering; the HR model and its pace of introduction should be tailored to the organization.

Offers practical advice and suggestions on judging readiness for partnering, and for putting the key requirements in place.

Helps readers to gauge their organizations’ readiness for partnering, and to avoid some of the pitfalls. Also proves valuable to organizations that have begun their partnering journey.

Relationship marketing focuses on building strong relationships with individual customers. Its emergence in the 1980s was however not so much a discovery, but a rediscovery of a truth which formed the foundation of many businesses. Partnering, at its best, is a long term commitment between two or more organisations for the purpose of achieving specific business objectives by maximising the effectiveness of each participant’s resources. The relationship is based upon trust, dedication to common goals and understanding each other’s individual expectations and values. This seems to suggest many similarities between relationship marketing and partnering. It is, however, still unclear as to what these similarities are. The objectives of this paper are, firstly, to compare relationship marketing with the partnering concept in the construction industry and, secondly, draw lessons from partnering in construction for relationship marketing.

This chapter explores the key role of industry partners in the adoption of challenge-based learning (CBL) in higher education institutions (HEIs). Considering that one defining feature of CBL is the use of real-world challenges situated within an authentic real-world context or scenario, partnerships that include students, academics, and industry partners are often established. These partnerships usually involve students, academics, and industry partners working together to define challenges, create and implement solutions, and provide feedback. Existing CBL literature has largely focused on the evaluation of challenges and benefits for students and academics, including disciplinary knowledge acquisition and the development of competencies and soft skills. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the expected input from industry partners, as well as their perceptions and benefits that they can gain from CBL partnerships. Thus, the focus of this chapter is on discussing industry partners' perceptions of the practical challenges, as well as potential opportunities that can translate into benefits, stemming from CBL partnerships. Based on empirical evidence, the chapter summarizes the current challenges of CBL within the context of HEIs. We discuss industry partners' perceptions of the practical challenges and the potential opportunities emerging from the CBL partnership, and whether these translate into benefits. We consider the practicalities of working across academia, industry, and government on the implementation of CBL, and the lessons for HEIs seeking to develop CBL activities to support innovation in their regions.