Challenges and Proposed Solutions for Mergers and Partnerships in Higher Educational Sector

Abstract

Many significant developments had been observed in the area of Mergers & Partnerships (M & P) in various industrial domains in last few years; however, not much of this kind of partnerships were seen in the area of higher education sector. There is an absolute need to explore M & Ps in the educational domain also to equip the global talent pool to meet the upcoming global needs, economic complexities & technological changes. Additionally, there is a huge potential for the educational business in the global market and M & Ps certainly play a significant role to meet such a high-growth market segment in the global environment. The objective of this paper is to highlight the key concepts of M & Ps in the higher education sector and take these thoughts to wider audience for further application.

The focus of this paper is to review the available literature / papers on M & P in the field of Higher Education (HE) and consolidate the various challenges faced by the global educational institutes. This paper also covers proposed strategic solutions based on the identified issues and formulate some guidelines for further research and customization of integration & collaboration processes to make future M & P more productive and successful. The challenges and solutions discussed in this paper are based on consultations with various academic & integration experts in the field of higher education, review of existing literature and author's experience in the relevant domain. Although, the paper is based on theoretical aspects, the concepts are valuable for experimenting in future research in the area of Mergers & Partnerships in the field of higher education.