UDC 378.4
DOI https://doi.org/10.30839/2072-7941.2018.155559
BENEFITS OF BUSINESS AND UNIVERSITY COLLABORATION
IN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
© MEJERYTE-NARKEVICIENE, K.
Lithuanian Sports University (Kaunas, Lithuania) Vytautas Magnus
University (Kaunas, Lithuania)
E-mail: kristina.mejeryte@lsu.lt, ORCID 0000-0003-0629-3265

Abstract. The relevance of the research In the face of increasing global competition,
business was challenged to seek new methods for creating their competitive advantage and at
the same time the decreasing budgets of higher education institutions were pressured to find
new streams of financing. In both cases, collaboration is seen as an important method for
achieving their objectives but universities of today have as well to find the appropriate
balance between teaching, basic and applied research, and entrepreneurship. Ten types of
university-business collaboration are related quite directly to the missions of the university
and the needs of business. Curriculum development and delivery is one of that ten, which aim
is to develop human resources to modern society. A summary of benefits was identified in the
academic literature as arising from UBC in relation to curriculum design and delivery for
multiple stakeholders including academics, students, university administration, business and
community. Overall, UBC may take various forms that are influenced by different factors but
even if all stakeholders seeks the main purpose of this process they may get different benefits.
The research aim was to identify the benefits of universities and business organizations in
curriculum development. The objectives of the research: to determine the instruments and
activities used for universities and business organizations collaboration, to identify
universities and business organizations benefits from collaboration to the various stakeholder
groups. Analysis of recent research and publications. UBC became the subject of education
and management sciences. P. D'Este and M. Perkmann explored the factors of UBC, the types
were identified by T. Davey, T. Baaken, V. Galan Muros, A. Meerman, T. Barnes, A.
Gibbons and the levels of UBC were represented by B.N. Ponomariov, P.C. Boardman, T.
Davey, R. Lauzackas. The benefits of UBC to research quality have been studied by
researchers T. Davey , M. Crespo, N. Carayol, H. Forsyth, R. Laxton, S. Lamichhane, T. Nath
Sharma, P. Van der Sijde and H. Dridi, as a collaborative factor for learning improvement by
researchers K. Ramakrishnan, N.M. Yasin, A. Draghici. An overview of the study of this
object shows that it was mostly analysed in vocational training and in last ten years’ period
the publications is growing in UBC. Research methodology. The paper seeks to represent the
UBC benefits for different stakeholders and collaboration forms, which was used by
university with the business organizations from leisure industry. Quantitative research was
used to gain quantify opinions of benefits and instruments of UBC – and generalize results
from a larger sample population. Methods applied for the research was scientific literature
review, a questionnaire survey for business organization leaders and mathematical statistics.
Conclusion. The benefits of the UVB were grouped according to the type of
stakeholder's: society, university administration, academics, entrepreneurs, students. The
benefits of business stakeholders include additional funding, access to education resources,
lecturer and coordinator, support in evaluating the program and developing new study
subjects. The highest rated benefit to others stakeholders from their view could be reducing
academic staff training costs, as well as business information available to student projects,
skills development and student employment opportunities and human resource development
in the region.
Keywords: university and business collaboration, UBC benefits, UBC collaboration
forms, curriculum performance, business collaboration in curriculum.