Coordination and cooperation between state universities and the industries in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore reason for low coordination and cooperation between Management Faculties and other stakeholders in State Universities in Sri Lanka. Theory of communicative action, which theorizes how people communicate, coordinate and cooperate is employed to theories these issues. The finding of the paper shows system, mainly bureaucratic system is being practiced in state universities in Sri Lanka result in lack of coordination and cooperation with other stakeholders, particularly industries. Therefore it is concluded that management faculty failed to coordinate and cooperate with industrialists. This study further indicates the reasons for lack of coordination and cooperation is due to lack of forum to dialogue between academics and industrialist, no trust between them, less commitment to achieve common goals and no recognition of mutual expectation between academics and industrialists. While being the first to theorize the low industrial relation in Sri Lankan state universities, this paper contributes to the research by illustrating how the theory of communicative action can be used to explore issues related to higher education globally.