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Organizational inquiry and the assessment of human resource development needs: A study in university-industry partnership building
Abstract
The many competitive challenges facing U.S. industry today are increasingly impacting the teaching, research, and service mission of institutions of higher education and affording unprecedent opportunities for entrepreneurial involvements beyond the campus. Fueled by higher education's dwindling fiscal resources, outreach to industry is viewed as essential to maintaining state-of-the-art curricula, equipment, and research. Bridging the gap between campus and corporate cultures, however, remains an enigma. This dissertation seeks to contribute to an understanding of the art and science of campus outreach by providing an in-depth look at partnership building--i.e., at the methods and process used in building a partnership between the University of Massachusetts and General Motors Framingham for the comprehensive provision of human resource development (HRD) programs and services aimed at improving the automobile assembly plant's competitive position. Chapter I describes the context of the dissertation, its purposes, significance, and limitations. Chapter II introduces the case study, describing the purposes and rationale underlying the organizational inquiry aimed at assessing the plant's HRD needs, the conceptual framework of the study, its research design and methods, and the vast body of multidisciplinary literature that informed the study and partnership implementation. Data collection included interviews with 95 salaried and 125 hourly personnel, an HRD questionnaire survey administered to the 4,300-member workforce, extensive review of plant records, and participant observation at the plant over the course of the 1-year study. Chapter III presents the study's non-proprietary product and process findings. Chapter IV explores what was learned from the case study concerning university-industry partnership building, draws certain parallels between the case study findings and conditions prevalent in the nation's higher education system and public K-12 schools, and urges closer collaboration between education and industry as they each struggle with restructuring.
Subject Area
Industrial arts education|Labor relations|Continuing education
Recommended Citation
deVries, Dianne Kaplan, "Organizational inquiry and the assessment of human resource development needs: A study in university-industry partnership building" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9305820.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9305820