Content area
Full text
1. Introduction
Higher education institutions (HEI) are the creators of knowledge, and this creation and application of new knowledge is critical for the economic development of a country. Disruption in technology; internationalization; the mismatch between the industry requirements and students' skills; financial constraints; and inadequate research facilities have made higher education institutions rethink their strategies to cope with the changes in the educational environment (Giridharan, 2020; Billionniere and Rahman, 2020; Howells et al., 2014; Singh, 2018). The ability of an organization to swiftly adapt its practices and processes in response to the changes in the environment makes an organization agile. Organizational agility necessitates strategic thinking, innovative and entrepreneurial mindset and a persistent need to be adaptable and proactive (Harraf et al., 2015). According to Sambamurthy et al. (2003), agile organizations need three complementary capabilities to survive and sustain in a competitive environment: operational agility, customer agility and partnering agility (Ngo-Ye and Ahsan, 2005). Within the context of higher education (HE), partnering agility may be defined as the ability of an institute to combine the expertise, skills and resources of partners, such as industry, technology providers, other international universities and community to recognize and leverage new opportunities (Mukerjee, 2014; Zaini and Masrek, 2013).
This study underpins the stakeholders' theory. Studies consider R. Edward Freeman, a well-known business expert, to be the founder of contemporary stakeholder theory (Hartman and Stafford, 2003; Schüller et al., 2014). Freeman (2010) defined stakeholders as individuals or a group of people who can affect or get affected by the firm's actions. The theory explains how collaborating with the stakeholders can help organizations create value and help in achieving short-term and long-term goals that would be impossible to achieve if worked independently (Gajda, 2004). Accomplishing the core activities of higher education (teaching, research and entrepreneurship) single-handedly would be a challenge as the institutions might face certain constraints (Borah et al., 2019; Huang and Chen, 2017). Developing associations with the multiple stakeholders would help HEIs respond to the challenges speedily and proactively. These associations may take different forms and may be known by different names, such as partnerships, collaborations, strategic alliances and joint ventures (Eddy, 2010). According to Tumbas et al. (2016), collaboration involves high-intensity interaction between the participants...