Partnership at Work: Mutuality and the Balance of Advantage David E. Guest and Riccardo Peccei Abstract A framework for the analysis of partnership at work is presented, emphasizing the principles, practices and outcomes of partnership. A survey using matched samples of 54 UK management and employee representatives found a link between partnership principles and practices, between practices and ratings of employee attitudes and behaviour, between these and estimates of positive employment relations and quality and productivity, finally between product- ivity and sales and profitability. The findings support a mutual gains model but show that the balance of advantage is skewed towards management and reflects generally low management trust in employee representatives. 1. Introduction Partnership, it seems, is an idea whose time has come. Indeed, at the turn of the millennium, it is one of the British Labour government's big ideas, constantly paraded as a good thing. It is an idea with which almost anyone can agree, without having any clear idea of what they are agreeing about. Perhaps because of this, the term is widely applied, so we hear much about public±private partnerships and about partnerships between the government and the people. In the area of work, it is offered as an approach to managing relations between employers and employees. The aim of this paper is to explore the meaning of partnership at work, identify some of its distinctive characteristics, and assess its impact. We start by drawing together some of the strands in the literature which might help us to make sense of this form of partnership. Building on this analysis, we then explore the definitions of partnership offered by actors in organizational settings where there has been some progress towards partnership. We go on to explore the consequences of partnership for some key partners. Finally, we highlight certain issues and problems associated with partnership in theory and in practice. David Guest and Riccardo Peccei are in the Management Centre, King's College, London. British Journal of Industrial Relations 39:2 June 2001 0007±1080 pp. 207±236 # Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.