A Critical and Analytical Study of the Benefits of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) to the Teaching of Business and Management Students

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) provide a significant opportunity for academics to ensure their teaching is up to date, challenging, based in the ‘real world’ and relevant to the needs of students. This paper assesses how KTPs can be used to benefit students and to identify the issues in doing so. There is considerable literature on the benefits of case studies for learning and teaching in business but little or no literature on the teaching benefits actually achieved by KTPs. Following a review of the literature in which the paper explores the research teaching nexus in the context of developing a continuum as abridge for the learning experience of students, an on-line questionnaire was developed, and emails inviting completion sent to 238 supervisors of current and recently completed (past 4 years) KTP projects in business schools obtained from the database on the KTP web site. The paper suggests that the benefits of such activities are not fully exploited and that more could be made of the potential contribution to the student’s learning experience. The use of case studies in the classroom was found not to be as developed as it could be as the main emphasis in the process was seen as delivering the outcomes of the project to the business partner. Anecdotes were used to bring teaching to life. Best practice in the use of KTPs to develop cases is also considered. Finally, the relevance of KTPs to research is outlined. The authors acknowledge the receipt of a BMAF Teaching Research and Development