Abstract
Actively promoting the employment of people with disabilities is critical for effective human resource development, fostering social integration, and ensuring they benefit from social progress. However, achieving highquality employment for people with disabilities remains a significant challenge in China. Cross-sector partnerships have emerged as an effective strategy for addressing complex social issues like disability employment, but the operational complexities within the Chinese institutional context require further exploration. This study analyzes a cross-sector partnership between the government and a private organization, using a longitudinal qualitative analysis of the nonprofit employment intermediary agency for people with disabilities over a three-year period, examining its formation, growth, and decline. The findings reveal that goal alignment among partners in underlying logic initially facilitated the establishment of the cross-sector partnership. The private organization’s flexibility and professional expertise enabled the organization to achieve notable achievements in providing employment services for people with disabilities. However, as cooperation deepened, the ambiguity of the partnership’s identity and the lack of transparency began to erode its legitimacy and effectiveness. These issues led to conflicts over resource allocation,goal setting, and operational methods, ultimately hindering the sustainability of the partnership. Based on these findings, this study suggests optimizing cross-sector partnerships by strengthening the integration of objectives,clarifying responsibilities, and improving policy stability and flexibility to ensure the sustainability of employment programs for people with disabilities. The study deepens the understanding of the challenges in achieving highquality employment for people with disabilities, reveals the institutional dilemmas and failure mechanisms that cross-sector partnerships face in the Chinese context, and provides valuable practical insights for policymakers and practitioners.