A rapid review of barriers and enablers of organisational collaboration: Identifying challenges in disability reform in Australia

Abstract

A rapid review of the literature on inter-organisational collaboration was undertaken to identify and describe key barriers and enablers of relevance to current disability policy developments in Australia. Term searches of four databases resulted in the identification of 433 articles published between 2009 and 2019. After removal of duplicates and refinement, 17 peer-reviewed articles underwent full review, data extraction and synthesis to distil barriers and enablers of inter-organisational collaboration at three levels. At the macro-level, policy instruments, institutional arrangements and resources were salient. At the meso-level, clarity of organisational purposes and roles, and organisational systems and processes were important, as were factors of leadership, management, power and workforce. At the micro-level, values, trust, culture and personal relationships could be either barriers or enablers, depending on context. The review indicated that meaningful and sustained collaboration across organisations is unlikely without careful planning, clear actions and significant investment at all three levels, providing important learnings for the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme context.