Resource sharing and government support in interagency working relationships

Abstract

Interagency relationships such as joint measures to control and prevent HIV/AIDS address problems of human service fragmentations and duplications. However, for the joint working relationships to be effective, the partner agencies need to equally share power/autonomy as well as other resources and the government needs to supply conducive environments to enable the same. This study addresses the practise of inter-organisational working relationships with focus on nature of resource sharing and government support to interagency working relationships. Agencies (n=3) involved in the control and prevention of HIV/AIDS in New Zealand were interviewed to analyse the nature of resource sharing among the partner agencies, and the extent of government influence on these. Results show that the government supplies conducive environments for interagency working relationships. Three key factors determine resource contributions by the agencies involved in the control and prevention of HIV/AIDS i.e. the depth of the relationship, .the similarity of agency's core missions to HIV/AIDS, and the resource interdependencies of the agencies. The research findings imply that agencies will work together effectively only if the joint ventures have no s:ignificant consequences on partner agency's resources - in particular, autonomy, budget, domain problems, and professional carriers.