Faculty of Humanities
School of Education
0107191f
deirdre.mathews@phzer.com / Over the last decade, communities and corporates have been encouraged to
initiate partnerships with one another as part of a Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) initiative in South Africa. Historically, community-business
partners have experienced tensions in their working relationships, and sought
ways in which they could deal with these tensions to create a beneficial
community-business partnership. The purpose of this study has been to gain
insights into a particular community-business partnership in Triomph, namely,
the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre, and Landelahni Recruitment Services
partnership. In this qualitative ethnographic study I explore three central
questions related to community-business partnerships: What is the nature of a
community-business partnership? What factors promote and inhibit a
community-business partnership? What kinds of adult learning happen within a
community-business partnership?
This study presents a case study for adult educators who are interested in
community-business partnerships. An ethnography was used to gain insight into
the partnership. Data have been collected from documents, interviews, and
observations within the context of the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre and
Landelahni Recruitment Services.
Results reveal that the nature of the community–business partnership was
characterised as a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship. This beneficial
relationship was influenced by the following: the socio-economic context
particular to this partnership, a formal Corporate Social Responsibility
agreement, which emphased development and empowerment, and finally the
role of financial contributions by Corporates. The factors that promoted the
partnership were an awareness by both partners of power and how power plays
out, the community organisation’s ability to understand their circumstances
and negotiate and make decisions, and the partner’s ability to assist one
another, while accessing each others networks through trust and reciprocal
assistance based on shared norms and values. A factor that inhibited the
partnership was the assumption that the partner with the most resources was
the most powerful. Another factor that inhibited the partnership was when
partners’ emphased social capital as being more important than other forms of
capital in the partnership. There were two forms of adult learning present in
the partnership, namely, nonformal learning which aims at empowering people
in both organisations, as well as incidental learning that occurred through
interaction with each other at an unconscious level. Both these forms of
learning were not isolated from the influence of power.
This study concludes by recommending certain principles, to guide a
community-business partnership. Recommendations relate to:
• The nature of an ideal partnership
• Enhancing factors that promote a partnership
• Mitigating factors that inhibit a partnership
• Achieving the benefit from nonformal and incidental learning
within community-business partnerships
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/1636 |
| Date | 13 November 2006 |
| Creators | Mathews, Corin Dessan |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1091349 bytes, 21567 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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