Interorganizational Linkages And The Success Of Cooperative Educational Programmes In Zimbabwe.

Abstract

The main purposes of this study were to examine the patterns of linkage of organizations involved in cooperative educational programmesand to determine the relationship between interorganizational linkage patterns and the effectiveness of cooperative educational programmes. The relative resource investment and the symmetry of resource exchange among participating organizations emerged as the two most important linkage dimensions that accounted for much of the variation in the nature of interorganizational linkage patterns of the organizations studied. Secondly, the effectiveness of the cooperative programme appeared positively related to the pattern of interorganizational linkages. Programme effectiveness profile of the six cooperative educational programmes measured in terms of both student perception of programme effectiveness and student perfonnance on the 1989final examinations were consistent with the profiles of the linkage dimensions of the six programmes. Finally, several tentative generalizations were fonnulated concerning interorganizational linkage patterns and programme effectiveness dimensions.