Key Success Factors for the Integration of Industry and Education in Maritime and Foreign-related Business Majors in Chinese Universities
You-Yu Dai *
International Business School of Shandong Jiaotong University, Weihai, Shandong, Republic of China and School of Business Administration, Guangzhou Institute of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Republic of China.
Xiaofei Chen
Yantai Hepalink Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Yantai, Shandong, Republic of China.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Aims: This study examines the key success factors for integrating industry and education in maritime and foreign-related business majors at universities. It focuses on professional contexts such as cross-border commerce, shipping logistics and maritime-related services, highlighting the distinctive characteristics of these fields in terms of cross-border positioning, maritime relevance, international compliance and bilingual competence.
Study Design: This study categorises the key success factors for industry-education integration into four groups: school-based factors, enterprise-based factors, school-enterprise coupling factors and external environmental factors. These groups are further divided into secondary indicators, including schools' organisational R&D capabilities, schools' reputation and authority, and teachers' practical abilities.
Place and Duration of Study: This study focuses on maritime and foreign-related business majors at vocational colleges, applied undergraduate colleges and research universities in Shandong Province.
Methodology: Using context analysis, the Delphi method and importance-performance analysis (IPA), the study systematically explores the key success factors and proposes targeted optimisation paths.
Results: The results indicate that school-related factors, the organisational coordination ability of maritime/foreign-related enterprises, cross-border school-enterprise communication mechanisms and cross-cultural coupling are important and perform well. The compatibility of talent training programmes, collaboration in knowledge and technology innovation, the quantity and diversity of maritime/foreign-related job supply, the scale of maritime/foreign-related industry-education resources, cross-border information coupling and the atmosphere of industry-education integration are important, but their performance is unsatisfactory.
Conclusion: The study therefore identifies areas that should be maintained, moderately adjusted, actively strengthened or prioritised for improvement. Its findings may support more targeted implementation of industry-education integration in maritime and foreign-related business majors.
Keywords: Industry-education integration, maritime business education, foreign-related business majors, Chinese universities, school-enterprise cooperation, importance-performance analysis, Delphi method, talent training programmes, cross-border communication, maritime industry resources