Leadership roles and sustainable public-private partnership between technical universities and industry in Ghana

Public-private partnership (PPP) between Technical Universities (TUs) and industry is important for development. Although the typologies, benefits and the challenges in such partnerships have been studied in the past, the problem of lack of clarity of leadership roles along with the effects of leadership qualities necessary for sustaining PPPs between TUs and industry in Ghana persists, as it has not been well considered. In this paper, we investigate the leadership roles that sustain PPPs among TUs and related industries in Ghana. A conceptual model is proposed to identify leadership roles for sustaining PPPs between TUs and industry. Questionnaires were administered to 418 respondents selected using the stratified random sampling technique. Among these, data was gathered from 320 respondents who completed questionnaires. Having obtained 77% value for Cronbach Alpha to confirm reliability and acceptance of data, further statistical analysis was performed to obtain results for this study. In particular, descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were employed to determine the extent of relationships among the variables in the model. The results of the study revealed that leadership roles of negotiation skills, networking, planning, and monitoring significantly contributed to the sustainability of PPPs in TUs. Overall, the study suggests that leadership of TUs and industries should effectively carry out the roles of negotiation, planning, networking, monitoring, and evaluation in order to achieve sustainable partnerships.