A comparison of suggested versus practiced business-education-partnership characteristics

The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of the business-education partnership process and to determine which characteristics best serve the involved communities, resulting in a list of model characteristics that can help both business and education meet their goals. A literature review identified characteristics that diverse writers from business, education, and public service sectors believed should be incorporated in the development of a partnership. Award-winning partnerships in Illinois received a questionnaire that presented a list of the characteristics. Respondents used a Likert-type scale to rate desirability according to the importance they thought the characteristics had for the development of an effective partnership and they indicated if their partnership practiced the same characteristics. Also, respondents indicated if they believed their partnership had reached its goals.;A list of model characteristics developed after an analysis of the data included all of the previously identified characteristics. For clarity, the characteristics were grouped into six dimensions of the partnership building process. Within each group the characteristics were placed into rank order. The ranking was based on the goal-achieving respondents who indicated their partnerships actually practiced the characteristics. This list of model characteristics suggested ways to build and maintain award-winning, goal-achieving partnerships.;General conclusion one: Partnership foundations should include the operational characteristics that were identified by this study. This conclusion is evidenced by the first major finding that embodied a positive correlation between the characteristics recommended by the literature and the use of those same characteristics by the study's respondents.;General conclusion two: Business people and educators can work together to overcome obstacles to reach their identified goals. This conclusion is evidenced by the second major finding that 94% of the questionnaire respondents believed their partnerships ultimately had met both the respondents' goals and the partnerships' goals. This conclusion is reached despite the claims of a number of authors who reported there were major obstacles to overcome.;Spearman correlations showed there were significant relationships between what the literature indicated was important, what the respondents thought was important, and what the respondents actually practiced. Cross-tabulation between business and education respondents revealed any biases.