title: Planned approaches to business and school partnerships. Does it make a difference? The business perspective.
abstract: In many countries, schools are encouraged to link with business to add authenticity to learning. The number of these business-school partnerships has shown a marked increase over the last twenty years. Traditionally researchers investigating these partnerships have focussed on the schools' perspectives (Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, 2010, pp. 32-33), however this New Zealand research has focused solely on the business perspective of established school partnerships. The study used a mixed methods approach utilising both online survey and semi-structured interviews. Ten out of the forty participating businesses surveyed used a brokering organisation as a way of developing and maintaining these partnerships and some developed rationales to support the partnership. This study investigated the value of using brokering organisations, rationales and designated staff to support business-school partnerships. Findings indicate that brokers and designated staff play a very effective role in enhancing business-school links, and more benefits are perceived when a rationale has been established. It is anticipated that these findings will support the development and success of business-school partnerships.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601, Symonds Street, Auckland 1150, New Zealand. Electronic address: k.lee@auckland.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Kerry
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601, Symonds Street, Auckland 1150, New Zealand. Electronic address: j.hope@auckland.ac.nz.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hope
authors.affiliation: Human Capital Development, Tamkeen, P.O. Box 18131, Tamkeen, Manama, Bahrain. Electronic address: fghani@tamkeen.bh.
authors.forename: Fatima
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Abdulghani
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D010934:Planning Techniques; D055818:Public-Private Sector Partnerships / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012574:Schools
keywords: Broker; Business; Education; Enterprise; Organisation; School