The multiple stakeholder relationships involved in cooperative education calls for different levels of involvement from the stakeholders, at different times throughout the experience. A stakeholder–integrated approach implies that to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes the level of control should be distributed equally and total dominance by one stakeholder in the partnership may lead to ineffective relationships. However, a critical view in relation to power dynamics suggests that there is no such thing as a neutral relationship because someone always has power or control (Strier, 2011). It can be argued that when universities partner with community based organizations the university tends to have the greater level of responsibility and therefore this can be seen as control. Two academic supervisors endorsed this view:
Yes I think it is a partnership, whether they’re all equal partners I’m not quite sure…possibly we are slightly more dominant partner because we set the rules. Because there are certain requirements that we stipulate… but yes to call it partnership is appropriate. (Academic I5)
It’s a three-way partnership and we can benefit as much as the student and the industry. I think it’s quite an equal partnership I’m always conscience that I have a responsibility, possibly more than the industry supervisor because I am paid to support my student and because of that I also need to maintain a relationship with the placement where they are placed. So I feel I have an obligation to make it work really, and make that partnership work. (Academic I3)
Although most stakeholders interviewed shared similar views of the overall concept of partnership, one industry supervisor had a contrasting view:
I don’t know if actually partnership is too strong a word, I think because there’s no outside indication of that so if for example we were a big organization the rest of the organization may not even know that we have got someone from AUT, and therefore it’s hardly a partnership. It’s not that we put it in our newsletter and tell the world. There is not a logo exchange, which you would expect with partnerships. So I think that is formalizing it too strongly. (Industry I1)
Academics, students and industry supervisors each approach the cooperative experience from a different orientation. As expressed by an academic supervisor, clear communication particularly of roles and responsibilities is important in order to form and sustain effective cooperative education relationships:
Every semester I might have six relationships with individual industry supervisors and I think I generally think they go pretty well, as long as, as I say, as long as communication is maintained and we have expectations that are on the same page and that the placement is set up in a way that everyone understands what’s going on. (Academic I5)
Students and industry supervisors frequently expressed the importance of good communication between all three stakeholders. When trying to establish effective communication between partners one issue that needs to be considered is language. The language used by an academic may be quite different to that of an industry supervisor. Both may have their own jargon and understandings of what words mean, which can inhibit communication.