Engaging the Paradox in Partnership: Balancing Conflict and Cooperation

The central argument we proposed in the introductory chapter and demonstrated throughout the various book chapters, maintains that partnerships are dialectic entities. On the one hand these arrangements are established in order to enable cooperation among the partners. Yet, each of the partners is motivated to promote and emphasize his or her own interests, at times at the expense of the other partners. We present a conceptual framework designed to synthesize the findings and insights of the preceding chapters. It focuses on factors promoting versus impeding the success of partnerships, in particular their capabilities to cope with the dialectic nature of these alliances. We address the following two questions: What factors influence the characteristics and intensity of the paradox? How can the partners cope with the duality?