An Empirical Examination of Partnership Frequency and Design within International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) Eric Boyer a and Aleksey Kolpakov b a Public Administration Program, University of Texas at El Paso, Kelly Hall, El Paso, Texas, USA; b Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno, Mack Social Science Building, Reno, Nevada, USA ABSTRACT Despite the increase in public and nonprofit partnerships, there is little understanding of the organizational factors associated with partnership frequency and design. Through negative bino- mial and multinomial logistic regressions, this study analyzes data from interviews with 149 leaders of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), to first examine partnership frequency, and to then examine the formation of different partnerships structures: principal- based partnerships, agent-based partnerships, and shared power-based partnerships. The findings suggest that improving results and increasing funding are the primary goals of partnership adoption, and that the most management intensive forms of partnerships are only adopted when INGOs have sufficient organizational capacity. KEYWORDS Collaboration design; cross-sector collaboration; International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs); nonprofit management Whether for political reasons (Johansen & LeRoux, 2013), or to improve programmatic goals and internal organiza- tional operations (Sowa, 2009), partnering has become the de facto solution for nonprofits seeking to do more with less. One study found that 54% of human service nonprofits reported partnering with government (Gazley & Brudney, 2007), and related research indicates an uptick in “collaborative activity” in other parts of the not-for-profit sector (Baur & Schmitz, 2012). Nonprofits often partner with the for-profit sector (Chen & Krauskopf, 2013), the public sector (Gazley & Brudney, 2007), and other nonprofits (Mitchell, 2014) to achieve outcomes in service delivery that a single organization could not achieve on its own (Entwistle & Martin, 2005; O’Leary, Choi, & Gerard, 2012). A rich literature has developed on public sector organizations engaging in cross-sector collaborations (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Amirkhanyan, 2009; Bryson, Crosby, Stone, & Saunoi-Sandgren, 2009), and there is a long tradition of research on corporate and business partnerships (Kale & Singh, 2007; Lavie, Haunschild, & Khanna, 2008). Yet, there is a relative paucity of understanding of the reasons that drive nonprofit leaders to work with other organizations. A case in point is the practice of international non- governmental organizations (INGOs), nonprofit organizations headquartered in the United States (U.S.), with programs and mandates in countries outside of the U.S. INGOs offer an interesting population of analysis, given their increasing role in global affairs (Schmitz, 2011; Schmitz, Raggo, & Bruno-Van Vijfeijken, 2012). The growth of the INGO sector has been well documented (Boris, De Leon, Roeger, & Nikolova, 2010; Powell & Steinberg, 2006), and INGOs contribute to the “globaliza- tion” or internationalization of public services (Kettl, 2000). 1 There is also increasing evidence that partnering with the private sector (or organizations from other sec- tors) can improve the effectiveness of INGO programs abroad (Fisher, 1997; Haque, 2004). One area recognized for further research is how the goals of INGOs align with the adoption and structures of partnerships. Prior studies identify some internal decisions guiding the structural form of partnerships (whether to adopt more shared authority structures or not) (Guo & Acar, 2005), as well as the political decisions that determine whether or not nonprofit leaders engage in partnerships at all (Gazley, 2010). Yet, there is little understanding of why INGO leaders select different structures of partnerships to meet different types of strategic purposes. A second research need involves an understanding of how internal operational capacity is associated with partnerships. A significant body of research draws from CONTACT Eric Boyer ejboyer@utep.edu University of Texas at El Paso, Public Administration, 500 West University Ave.Kelly Hall 403, El Paso, TX 79968, USA. 1 INGOs often supplant the social services provided by governments in low-income countries and achieve significant social and political change through advocacy (Guo & Zhang, 2014). INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2017.1300916 © 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC