Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that motivate businesses to become involved with K-12 public schools and to determine whether business size is linked to these motivating factors. Methodology. This study examined 154 business/education partnerships in K-12 public schools in eleven districts in Los Angeles County. The population for this study is 973 businesses that are currently involved in partnerships with schools in eleven districts in Los Angeles County. A random sample of 154 businesses was chosen. A semi-structured telephone interview with a representative from each business sought identification of motivating factors through an open-ended inquiry. Additionally, the instrument sought ratings of the degree of importance of thirteen factors that were previously identified by a focus group as possible reasons for the respondents' involvement in partnership with their respective schools. All responses were grouped in categories. The chi-square test of independence was used at the.05 level to establish statistical significance. Findings. This study found five major motivations for businesses to form partnerships with public schools: (1) Supporting the community; (2) promoting the business in the community; (3) improving education; (4) receiving financial incentives and (5) boosting the business employees' morale. Eighty-five percent of the businesses interviewed, regardless of size, stated that supporting the community was a major reason for their involvement with public schools. The study generated five major recommendations from businesses to those who are considering establishing a partnership. These five were abstracted from a total of 200 open-ended recommendations: (1) A partnership should have specific goals and priorities; (2) Partners should be committed to the partnership and consistent in their behavior toward it; (3) A partnership must be mutually beneficial; (4) A partnership must be a team effort; and (5) A partnership must involve key people from both organizations. Conclusions and recommendations. (1) Businesses form partnerships with public schools mainly to support the community; (2) The reasons a business forms a partnership with a K-12 public school are unrelated to the size of that business; (3) Financial incentives are not strong motivators for businesses' involvement with public schools; (4) There was no indication in this study that business people wish to assume the educators' responsibilities. Educators need to feel more comfortable and less apprehensive in working with businesses; (5) When attracting business partners, educators do not need to be concerned with developing different strategies for different business sizes; (6) School administrators or staff who decide to approach a business in the community should have clear goals in mind; (7) School administrators might consider approaching more than one partner, perhaps including representatives from various segments of society as well as government agencies and legislators. Recommendations for further research. (1) The present study could be replicated using K-12 public school administrators as respondents; (2) A valuable study would be to examine reasons why businesses do not choose to be part of a partnership with K-12 public schools.