SELECTING PARTNERS FOR COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS
Mixed Methods Approach
Noor Azliza Che Mat, Yen Cheung
Monash University, Victoria, Australia
Helana Scheepers
Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria, Australia
Keywords: Partner selection criteria, Collaborative projects, Mixed methods.
Abstract: Due to an increasingly uncertainty in the business environment, there is a need for organisations to
collaborate in order to compete. However, due to time limitation in selecting partners for collaboration
particularly new partners, there is a need to identify critical factors in finding the right partners. To explore
the criteria for partner selection, mixed research methods approach was employed by conducting an online
survey followed by a case study approach. The online survey was conducted with eighty-nine organisations
that have experience in collaborative projects. ANOVA tests were performed on the survey data followed
by an exploratory analysis. The major findings showed that out of sixteen partners selection criteria, only
seven were critically important in selecting partners. These were then divided into two dimensions:
dependability and experience. Later, the case study research methodology was carried out and conducted as
further analysis of the online survey findings.
1 INTRODUCTION
The new wave of global mergers as well as the
widespread establishment of global networks has
created a new phenomenon in conducting a business
where collaboration is a primary requirement.
Business nowadays is no longer about competition at
all costs but that organisations are being pushed to
work to collaborate with other organisations to gain
competitive advantage. Sustaining business growth
in the age of globalisation where it is being
conducted across national boundaries seems harder
to maintain without collaboration.
Selecting partners for collaborative project
requires proper planning and a number of criteria
should be considered carefully to ensure that the
end-result of collaboration creates satisfaction from
all parties involved and achieves the expected
outcomes. The partner selection process is time
consuming and a long list of criteria was shown and
given in previous research, organisations might miss
out on fruitful opportunities in the market if no
immediate action is taken. Furthermore, the high
percentage of collaboration projects that failed to
achieve objectives was due to the incompatibility of
the partners (Dacin and Hitt, 1997). Therefore,
finding partners for organisations regardless the size
of organisations, types of business activities and
location is critical to help organisations select
partners who have compatible goals, required skills
and complementary strategic orientation. The choice
is key to pursuing fruitful market-opportunity (Dacin
and Hitt, 1997).
Therefore, the main goals and motivation of
this paper are to investigate the following research
questions: what are the dimensions that form criteria
for selecting partners and what are the elements of
those dimensions?
The remainder of the paper is set out as
follow: Section 2 and 3 describe a background of
collaboration, the partner selection criteria
respectively; followed by Section 4 which gives the
description quantitative and qualitative research
methods.Section 6 shows the characteristics of the
sample and also provides empirical findings from
the survey conducted. It also presents two case
studies. Section 7 discusses the findings and finally,
Section 8 concludes with contributions, limitations
and suggestions for further work.
122
Azliza Che Mat N., Cheung Y. and Scheepers H. (2010).
SELECTING PARTNERS FOR COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS - Mixed Methods Approach.
In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Software Agents and Internet Computing, pages 122-128
DOI: 10.5220/0003007801220128
Copyright
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 SciTePress

2 COLLABORATION
In the academic literature the term, “collaboration”
itself does not present as a single term (Fyall and
Garrod, 2005). the terms, ‘collaboration’ and
‘cooperation’ are used interchangeably. Adding to
the confusion, other words such as ‘partnerships’,
‘alliances’, ‘joint ventures’ and ‘consortia’ are also
applied as common or general term in most research
papers.
The use of the terminologies became obvious
when other terms such as networking,
communication and coordination are also considered
and related to each other (Himmelman, 1996). The
following discussion in this article focuses on those
concepts. Other researchers have studied differences
among the terminologies of coordination,
cooperation and collaboration.
Himmelman (1996) shows a progressive increase
in the complexity of the relationship from
coordination to collaboration. Organisations that
coordinate typically share information, whereas
cooperating organisations share information as well
as physical space and transportation resources.
Organisations that collaborate share information,
physical space, transportation resources and further
invest in the training of staff.
Camarinha-Matos and Hamideh (2006)
proposed an interaction level of maturity levels of
networking, cooperation, coordination and
collaboration. As the relationship progresses from
the lowest to the highest level, the amount of
integration increases and people are working
together and sharing their responsibilities. Therefore,
collaboration is an emerging and long process that
requires the highest level of maturity as well as
integration.
The proliferation of the information and
communication technology (ICT) development with
low cost computing have given a tremendous
influence on how business operation is conducted by
allowing organisations to be connected virtually
regardless of the geographical location or known as
collaborative networks. Collaborative networks
(CN) are defined as groups of businesses,
individuals and other organisational entities that
work together by combining their capabilities and
resources to achieve targeted outcomes (Shuman and
Twombly, 2008).
3 PARTNER SELECTION
One of the main prerequisites to get those
advantages that need to be considered carefully
before becoming involved in collaborative projects
is selecting the right partners to work together
(Killing, 1983;Dong and Glaister, 2006). This is
because selecting the right partners, who have
compatible goals, appropriate skills and effective
motivation, has been recognised as crucial for
successful collaboration (Dacin and Hitt, 1997). The
chosen partners for collaborative projects might
affect the overall mixture of available skills and
resources as well as the operating policies and
procedures (Geringer, 1991).
However, according to Wildeman (1998) the poor
success rate of collaboration showed that 60-70% of
collaboration disbanded prematurely due to certain
factors such as lack of management skills.
Organisations should identify selection criteria that
should be employed prior to the setting up of
collaboration projects. Furthermore, the process of
setting up collaborative projects is time consuming
and costly. However, many organisations select their
partners in an ad-hoc manner
While it seems that an almost unlimited range of
criteria exists in selecting partners, Geringer (1991)
simplified by distinguishing broad categories of
criteria. These two categories are called ‘task-
related’ and ‘partner-related’ criteria respectively.
The typology provides better understanding of the
selection process and how they proceed in selecting
partners(Tatoglu, 2000).
Little prior research has specifically focused
on the partner-related criteria and therefore, the
focus of this paper is on partner-related criteria as it
has great impact on organisations and business
performances (Kannan and Tan, 2002). Furthermore,
partner-related criteria can be critical criteria as they
can influence the efficiency and effectiveness of
corporation between partners (Thomlinson, 1970).
The consideration of those criteria during the
selection stage is also vital to make relationship
management easier and the chances of the possibility
of successful collaboration are higher (Abramov et
al., 1997). The identified list of criteria for selecting
partners was based on a comprehensive and
thorough literature review from forty-one
established journals (Mat et al., 2008).
4 RESEARCH METHODS
The quantitative research approach has dominated
the late 19th century until the mid-20th century
(Creswell, 2009). It is a means of systematic
scientific investigation of exploring the relationship
among variables using statistical procedures or
mathematical expression. The format of questions is
SELECTING PARTNERS FOR COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS - Mixed Methods Approach
123

closed-ended information and it is used to confirm a
hypothesis about phenomenon.
In the next half of the 20th century, the
qualitative research received a great attention and a
number of journals have been growing and became
an important type of research in the fields of
management, psychology, communications or
information studies.
Along with the emergence of qualitative
research, the mixed methods
research was created by
combining both quantitative and qualitative research
(Creswell, 2009). The strategies of inquiry that are
related to mixed method are multi-methods,
convergence, integrated and combined (Creswell,
2009). The mixed methods is accepted as the third
major research approach or research paradigm
besides qualitative and quantitative.
According to Creswell (2009), mixed
methods research is a research design or an approach
to inquiry that collects and analyses data that
integrates between qualitative and quantitative data
in a study or series of studies. The use of both
approaches help to strengthen the overall study in
terms of understanding the research problems better
than merely focusing on qualitative or quantitative
research (Creswell and Clark, 2007). Furthermore, it
helps in reflecting the research questions better
compared to a single qualitative or quantitative
(Newman et al., 2003). The mixed methods research
approach is accepted as the third major research
paradigm besides qualitative and quantitative
research (Johnson et al., 2007).
5 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD
Data analysis can be divided into two groups
according to online survey and case study methods.
5.1 Online Survey
An online survey was employed to explore the
criteria for selecting partners. The survey was
distributed to targeted organisations. Invitation e-
mails were sent to top management personnel in the
organisations who have sufficient knowledge and
experience to participate in the survey.
The survey instrument was divided into two main
sections. The first section contains questions on
demographic characteristics of organisations such as
location, number of employees, period of
organisations involved in a business. In the second
section is the investigations of the criteria for
selecting partners were listed. Each item for the
criteria list and the perceived benefits were
measured on a five-point interval scale where 5
means ‘Strongly Agree’ and 1 is ‘Strongly
Disagree’.
Initially, the survey was evaluated by selected
domains in line with the recommendations given by
Kitchenham and Pfleeger (2002). The survey was
returned with minor corrections and later a pilot test
of the survey was conducted with five postgraduate
students who had experience in the subject matter.
The revised version of the survey was distributed
via an embedded hyperlink in an introduction e-mail
to 326 organisations in mid November 2008 and a
total of eighty-six usable responses were returned
with a response rate of 26.3%.
5.2 Case Study
The finding of the online surveys was generated by
using complex quantitative methods. However, due
to the limitation of the questions in online survey
with close-ended format, case studies were
conducted with the purpose to perform further
identification and investigation of the results of the
previous survey. The case study methodology is a
relevant technique for an in-depth analysis in
answering particular reasons of the findings
(Benbasat et al. 1987; Galliers, 1991).
In this research, the face-to-face interview and
phone interview sessions were conducted with two
selected organisations from Malaysia and each
interview took 1 hour. Interviews play important
roles in case studies to provide rich information
about a particular situation (Benbasat et al.,
1987;Yin, 2009). The interview question contains
open-ended questions about the criteria which are
derived from the online survey findings.
The organisations were asked to give their
opinions and expectations of their understanding of
the criteria and the reasons of the importance of
those criteria. The interviews
sessions were recorded
using audiotapes as these medium certainly are
better means to provide a more accurate
interpretation of the interviews than any other
method (Yin, 2009).
Pseudonyms Company ABC and Company XYZ
for the two case organisations were chosen in this
study to provide anonymity to the participants.
Case 1 [Company ABC]
Has been established since 1974 in Malaysia with
annual net sales estimated at US$30.1 billion and
has been well-known as a global communication
leader for many years ago. Unit Home and Network
in company ABC is responsible for fulfilling
customer’s demands in rich mobile commerce and
in-home entertainment. The main job in this unit is
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designing, manufacturing, installing, and servicing
digital and Internet Protocol (IP) video and
broadcast network interactive set-tops. To fulfil
market demands of their products, organisation ABC
needs to collaborate with various partners to develop
the integrated chips.
Case 2 [Company XYZ]
Has been established since July 1998 to develop a
world class integrated petrochemical Due to the lack
of technological expertise and experience in
developing high technology, the company needs to
collaborate with one overseas company. The review
process of selecting the best partner required a
thorough step as the investment of the collaboration
project is estimated at more than $10 million.
6 RESULTS
6.1 Online Survey – Statistical Finding
As the criteria for selecting partners were measured
using various items, reliability tests were conducted
to measure the degree to which items that make up
the scale are measuring the same underlying
attributes. This could be measured using Cronbach
alpha (Nunnally, 1978) and in this case, the
Cronbach alpha for all variables is above 0.7 which
is good and acceptable. Then, an exploratory factor
analysis test was employed to address the validity of
these variables as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Factor loading of partner selection criteria
Factor Item *FL *Rel
Depen
d-
ability
value
The partners showed integrity
(performed task with honesty)
.875 .811
The partner(s) can be trusted to
act in the best interest of the
partnership
.842
The partner(s) showed
commitment (dedicated in
performing tasks)
.805
The partner(s) had knowledge
of the local market we want to
target
.556
The partner(s) shared their
expertise/skill with us
.475
Experi
ence
value
The partner(s) had the ability to
negotiate with local
government where we wanted
to do business
.826 .711
The partner(s) had project
management experience
.812
* FL – Factor loading, Rel-reliability
As a result, the test generalised sixteen criteria
into two main factors i.e. Dependability and
Experience value and the relevant criteria are shown
in Table 3. However the close-ended questionnaire
in the online survey could not provide further
information about those results. Thus, further
investigations are needed. To determine the
importance of each of the two groupings, a case
study is conducted to provide some in-depth
information about those criteria.
6.2 Case Study Finding
The findings of the case studies were divided into
two main groups which were similar to the online
survey findings.
6.2.1 Dependability Value
Table 2 shows the statement from both
organisations, Company ABC and Company XYZ
about all the items in the Dependability group.
As shown in Table 1, the respondents express the
importance of the criteria of the Dependability group
by giving their opinions and reasons of those
criteria.
a. The Partner(s) can be trusted to Act in the Best
Interest of the Partnership
Both organisations agreed that trust is a really
important criteria to ensure that the
collaborative project runs successfully and
smoothly as well as more benefits could be
gained. Without trust, impossible for
organisations to do their work properly. All
those statements related to trust could be seen in
statements 1-3 and 1-2 for company ABC and
company XYZ respectively.
b. The Partner(s) showed Commitment (dedicated
in Performing Tasks)
Company ABC mentions that commitment is
important due to the dateline and money
invested in collaborative projects. This could be
seen in statements 4-5 for Company ABC. For
company XYZ, their collaborative projects
involve multi-million dollars investment.
Therefore, they feel that both parties should be
responsible to perform the jobs given and to
commit to the projects. Statement 3-4.
c. The Partners showed Integrity (performed Task
with Honesty)
Integrity is also important for company ABC
and company XYZ as shown in statements 6-8
and statements 5-6 respectively. Integrity seems
to be critical to company ABC as it is part of
their principles in performing the jobs and show
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125

Table 2: Dependability group and the statements from
Company ABC and Company XYZ regarding the criteria.
Company ABC Company XYZ
1. “Trust is important and
always number one in
collaboration project.
2. If you don’t have trust,
you can’t do work
smoothly.
3. Without trust, you can’t
do work properly. We
do not have to worry or
check our partners all
the time.”
4. “Commitment is
important because of
date line.
5. If you don’t
commitment, then it
will sway from the
dateline.”
6. Integrity is important.
One of the cores in this
company is
uncompromised
integrity.
7. “To me integrity is
important morally but to
project implementation
and the final results I
think they need prove or
to lead much about
integrity.”
8. Integrity helps to lead
everybody in the
projects to hold good
principles of working
environment and avoid
any misjudging about
others. Furthermore,
integrity shows that you
have good ethic in
doing your jobs.
9. “Yes, it is important
to transfer our
technology and
knowledge to them.
They transfer us the
opportunity to meet the
influential people like
politicians or who ever
that can give us
business.”
10. “Yes they should but
it is not important
because we are local so
we are not entering any
other country”
1. “Trust is important at
the early stage to
ensure that they are not
trying to steal some
valuable information.
2. It is to avoid us from
keep monitoring our
partners al the time.”
3. “Commitment is highly
needed because the
investments of this
project involve million
dollars.
4. “So both parties
confident that they will
commit to this project
due to large number of
money were invested in
this project…. Of
course commitment is
important. This plant is
a big project, high
capacity required as
well as the high risk
project.
5. “You must know the
project well. Then, you
will do the project with
honesty to ensure that
both parties satisfied
with the outcome of the
project.”
6. “…you should give
accurate information if
there is any problems
related to the projects,
not try to give wrong
information just to
cover the mistakes
happened in that
project.”
7. “It is important to share
that skill because from
the first stage we don’t
have that knowledge
and skills…If we
develop that skill by
ourselves, it might take
a long time.”
8. “Not important really
important because we
are not exporting our
products to other
countries. It just for
domestic usage.
that the partners have good ethics on the tasks
given. For company XYZ, they mentioned that
they try to avoid from giving inaccurate
information purposely to cover any mistakes
happened in past projects.
d. The Partner(s) shared their Expertise/Skill with
us
Sharing skills or expertise is important for both
organisations. Company ABC points out that the
sharing will provide some benefits to them as
shown in statement 9. Company XYZ need to
collaborate with their partners because they do
not possess the required skills and need to learn
that certain skills from others. Statement 7
shows their statement regarding the criteria.
e. The Partner(s) had Knowledge of the Local
Market we want to Target
Meanwhile, local market knowledge seems
unimportant for company ABC as shown in
statement 10. This is due to the fact that the
company is just conducting their business
locally. Similarly company XYZ also expressed
the fact that they are producing products for
domestic usage. Therefore, this criteria is not
relevant to them as mention in statement 8.
6.2.2 Experience
Table 3 shows the statement from both
organisations, Company ABC and Company XYZ
on the items in the Experience group.
Table 3: Experience group and the statements from
Company ABC and Company XYZ regarding the criteria.
Company ABC Company XYZ
1. Yes, if your partners
have that skills
(negotiation skill with
local government) that
would be great.
2. .However, it is not
really important
because we could study
about local regulation
and learn it by
ourselves.”
3. “Not really important
because we will do the
project management.”
1. “ I think same as
knowledge of local
market and as I
mention before, I
cannot give
2. “Project management
skill is important to
manage the project
better particularly this
project involve two
different countries with
different cultures. So if
we have good project
management, I think
we should not have
major problems to
manage the human
resources or cultures
issue”.
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a. The partner(s) had the Ability to Negotiate with
Local Government where we wanted to do
Business
Company ABC expresses in statements 1-2 that
that skill is not important compared to other
criteria and they can study the regulations and
laws related to the business.
Company XYZ seems inline with Company
ABC by mentioning that the skill is not required
in collaboration as they just negotiate with local
partners and share same regulations as shown in
statement 1 in Table 3.
b. The Partner(s) had Project Management
Experience
For company ABC, project management seems
unimportant. The management of the company
ABC will conduct the project management
because they play a role as supervisor in
collaborative projects and the partners just
execute the instructions given by them. This
could be viewed in the statement 3. In contrast,
organisation XYZ mentioned in statement 2 that
the experience is important in managing the
project to avoid any problems in managing the
human resources or cultural issues because it
involves joint venture between two countries.
The case studies also reveal that instead of five
criteria in the Dependability group, only three
criteria seems to be related based on the views of the
respondents. Those criteria are integrity, trust and
commitment. Table 4 shows the views of both
organisations regarding the relationship. Meanwhile,
sharing skills/expertise and knowledge of local
market seem to be unrelated to each other.
Table 4: Relationship among criteria.
Company ABC Company XYZ
“… I think there is a
relationship among trust,
integrity and commitment.
But to me, trust and
commitment is more on
delivery projects from
contractors/vendors to us
and from contractor
within.”
“I think trust,
commitment and
integrity are
complementary to each
other. If we don't have
trust in there, so it is
impossible to
collaborate and same
thing for 2 other criteria.
It seems that three of
them are good starting
point for us to
collaborate with
anyone.”
For the Experience group, two criteria in this
group are not related to each other from the
perspectives of Company ABC and Company XYZ.
7 DISCUSSION
The empirical findings presented in the previous
sections raise two interesting issues. The first issue
is about the partner selection criteria. The major
finding from the empirical data shows partner
selection is a two dimensional concept, i.e.
Dependability and Experience. The ‘Dependability’
dimension of selecting partners consist of ‘Integrity’,
‘Trust’, ‘Commitment’, ‘Knowledge of local
market’ and ‘Sharing expertise/skill’ whilst the
‘Experience’ dimension consists of two criteria:
‘Local market’ and ‘Project management
experience’. Both dimensions are not explicitly
acknowledged in previous studies or research. Thus,
this represents a major finding or contribution in this
area of study.
The second issue concerns the case study
findings. Both respondents emphasised the
importance of selecting those critical criteria. For
instance, the importance of trust in
collaboration/collaborative projects is in line with
previous findings by many researchers. It was
recognised by most researchers as in this study, as a
smoother way of interaction and co-working
(Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2006).
Third issue in this case study was the findings
show that both organisations agreed that there is a
strong correlation among the criteria of ‘trust,
integrity and commitment’ but not for ‘sharing
skill/expertise’ and ‘Local Market Knowledge’.
Those relationships seem as important ingredients
that need to be together and blend carefully in
selecting partners to help all parties involve in
collaboration could reach their setting goals.
McKnight et.al (2002) mentioned three types of trust
belief categories including integrity and therefore,
the finding from this case study confirmed the
previous study. Even though those criteria can not
be seen physically, but such matter would not be
neglected and need critical attention from all parties
to be consider as important criteria in selecting
partners.
However, the relationship of both criteria in the
Experience group; ‘project management’ and ‘ability
to negotiate with local government’; however is not
obvious for those organisations. The findings of the
survey and case study could help organisations to
select partners for collaboration in a proper and
more effective way by considering those critical
criteria. In the world of globalisation where business
could be conducted anywhere at any time, the idea
of collaborative networks are an important means
that could help organisations to develop partnerships
SELECTING PARTNERS FOR COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS - Mixed Methods Approach
127

in different geographical areas. By considering the
critical criteria given in this research, collaboration
projects should achieve the target objectives with a
higher rate of success.
8 CONCLUSIONS
The findings earlier have clearly shown that the
notion of partner selection criteria is made up of two
dimensions: ‘Dependability’ and ‘Experience’ value.
Further investigations will be conducted by
increasing the number of cases. In addition to
finding more organisations, further studies will show
how to integrate those criteria in collaborative
networks such as those of digital collaborative
networks where the interactions between partners
are more complex.
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