Public–private partnerships in education: insights from the field

Despite extensive attention (positive and negative) devoted to the philosophical, public policy and political dimensions of public–private partnerships (PPPs) in education, little attention has been devoted to their managerial implications as well as the broader organizational context (strategic alliances) within which they are a special case. In this paper we seek first to identify what they are and then examine PPPs in education that have been recently created and are operating in England. It is worth noting that PPPs appear to be indistinguishable from the larger set of strategic alliances in fields other than education, and their recent arrival in education reflects its evolution towards a multi-sector, alliance-oriented field. Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National College for School Leadership in their International research associates programme, which allowed us to produce a report on public–private partnerships that forms the basis of this paper. Notes 1. We have intentionally not referred to the extensive and growing body of research on relationships that are associated with 'social networks', 'network theory' and 'social capital', as reflected in the work of Coleman (1988) and Burt (Citation1992) among many. Despite substantial complementarily and some overlap, that work tends to focus on the further development of social network theory, of which inter-organizational strategic alliances are a small part. We, on the other hand, are more interested in understanding emerging forms of educational organization that we observe in practice.