Brief: Study concludes too many partnerships

Companies partner all too often without a sufficient reason to do so, according to a report completed by Electronic Data Systems Corp., Plano, Texas, and its consulting subsidiary, A.T. Kearney Inc.

Well-executed partnering has been shown to bump up a company's share value by 25 percent, but fewer than half the partnerships succeed. The biggest roadblock is overcoming the differences of culture between the partnering companies.

The paper identifies six differing cultural styles of business management and offers tips on how to mesh them. The report can be found at http://www.eds.com/thought

/thought_leadership_partnering.pdf.