Stakeholders’ Motivations for Engaging in University-Private Sector Partnership Activities in the Context of a New Democracy

• In Event: Exploring Higher Education Collaborations: Examining Internationalization, Partnership Dynamics, and Sustainability

Proposal

Background: University-private sector partnerships (U-PSP) involve a range of cooperation activities designed to achieve educational and economic objectives that collaboratively utilize universities' capabilities and the private sector's innovation and accumulated experience. U-PSPs have many models for action; they can be co-financed (McClure et al., 2020), learning-- based (Franco et al., 2019), research-oriented with a focus on commercialization (Franco & Haase, 2015), centered on business innovation (Frolund et al., 2018), or can emphasize workforce-focused curriculum (Hamaimbo et al., 2022). In practice, U-PSPs conjoin stakeholders with different interests, objectives, and motives to engage in partnerships. Ultimately stakeholders’ varying perspectives influence the quality and efficiency of the partnership.

Increasingly, the concept of U-PSPs has attracted interest as an approach to capacity development (or activities implemented to enhance individual talent, or managerial and/or institutional effectiveness (Hellstrom, 2017; OECD/DAC, 2006)) for developing countries (Hagelsteen, 2024; Hart et al., 2021) because of the potential that U-PSPs have to enhance educational improvement, economic growth, and youth empowerment. As such, several international aid, donors, and private foundations (Schiller & Brimble, 2009; Hagelsteen, 2024) are directing their support to promote U-PSPs. As such, it is important that research and evidence informs U-PSP implementation.

Previous studies regarding U-PSPs have assessed collaboration-PSPs with evidence noting the importance of organizational factors and processes (Franco & Haase, 2015; Franco et al., 2019; Kroon & Franco, 2022; Taxt, 2023). Other analyses address donor financing strategies for U-PSPs, but these analyses say little about individual stakeholders’ perspectives, and often treat them as passive participants. (Clarke & Oswald, 2022; Collins & Rhoads, 2009). Some research has begun to consider individual determinants of U-PSP engagement, with studies highlighting the ways students (Coker and Porter, 2016; et al., 2019; Franco-Angel et al. 2023) academic staff (Balven et al., 2018; Franco & Haase, 2015), and employers (Kroon & Franco, 2022) approach U-PSEs. Even so, to date, many of the intellectual and social aspects of stakeholders’ engagement in U-PSPs are underspecified (Hakami et al., 2022). Offering more insights about individual motivations will elaborate how the actual individuals engaging in U-PSPs view them. Such insights rare necessary for stimulating positive and enduring partnerships. Moreover, this study examines stakeholders’ (students’ and professionals’) motivations to engage in the U-PSP interventions. Our analysis will move beyond typical analyses that address organizational or funding structures and outcomes, to consider how individuals’ motivations influence the implementation of capacity development change processes.

Context: This analysis is situated in a donor-funded U-PSP that launched in the Republic of Kosovo in 2023. The partnership connects three public universities’ agricultural and information and communication technology (ICT) study programs to these sectors for the purpose of stimulating economic growth and youth empowerment in the labor force. Kosovo, a post-conflict country, suffers from persistent economic and institutional disadvantages (USAID, 2020), has high unemployment, especially for young people. The strategies for capacity development for these U-PSP partnerships involve experiential learning to prepare students for the labor market, workplace-focused curricular reform, industry-focused research, and supporting universities data usage to inform these strategies.

Method: Data are drawn from the student and professionals’ directory information associated with the U-PSP Kosovo project from the the first year of implementation. The student sample consists of n=348), and the professionals/private sector sample consists of n=248. The independent variables (IVs) for the student sample include one’s sex and age, and their organizational characteristics include the university attended, study program affiliation, and year of study. The professionals IVs include sex, their sector and a composite measure that indicates whether their company is “actively” or “passively” engaged in the project.

The outcome variables indicate one’s level of motivation to engage in a range of project activities. Students and private sector stakeholders selected whether they are “interested,” “not interested,” or “unsure” about engaging in a set of U-PSP activities, ranging from things such as mentoring, internships, career clubs, curricular reform, research, and other forms of collaboration. We created a composite variable that was the sum of all activities that a respondent expressed “interested” in, this ranged from 0-10. We also evaluated each individual item as an outcome to observe how one’s characteristics contribute to motivation to engage in specific types of U-PSP activities.

We ran linear regressions for the composite outcome variables for both samples. Then we estimated a series of multinominal logistic models. After running post-estimation tests we determined that the “not interested” and “unsure” categories were indistinguishable, so we collapsed them. Subsequently, we used binomial logistic regression to rerun the models. We use robust standard errors to compensate for a moderate departure from normality in the error terms (Cohen, Cohen, West & Aiken, 2003). We present findings in terms b values for linear regression and odds ratios for logistic.

Preliminary Findings: The students’ linear regression model explained 10% of the variation in their intensity of motivation (R2= .101, p<.001). Being female (b= 0.820, p<.05) was positively associated with being motivated to participate in more U-PSP activities. Compared to students enrolled at the large public university, students attending the community university were less motivated; on average, reporting interest in1.548 fewer activities (b =–1.548, p<.001). Compared to Year 3+ students, Year 1 students, on average, reported being motivated to participate in .855 more activities (b=.844, p<.05). Notably, the professionals’ linear model was not significant. With respect to specific types of U-PSP activities, in the student sample, 7 of the 9 models were significant. Of note, being a student enrolled in Year 1 (compared to Year 3) increased the odds of a student being interested in career clubs (OR=2.731, p<.05), and it dramatically increased the odds of their interest in learning more about the project (OR=4.097, p<.001).

In the professionals’ sample, both the linear regression and the 10 models were not significant. These findings reveal that in the case of this project, professionals’ interest in all U-PSP activities, has little to do with the independent variables we tested. We hope to purse future qualitative analysis to explore factors related to professionals’ motivations in the coming months to support future inquiry on this topic.

Authors

• Cassie L. Barnhardt, University of Iowa

• Man Phan, University of Iowa

• Sabrina Ahmed, The University of Iowa

• Zoie Schares, University of Iowa College of Education

• Sze Ling Hung, University of Iowa

• Sermin Turtulla, University of Prizren

• Elias Ejeh Ejeh, University of Iowa