Industry-Education Integration and Communities of Practice: An Exploration from the Perspective of Higher Education Management

Abstract

Rapid technological change and industrial restructuring have intensified the mismatch between university education and occupational practice. Industry-education integration and communities of practice offer two complementary mechanisms for improving the relevance, continuity and quality of higher education. Using literature review, conceptual analysis and policy analysis, this paper examines their theoretical foundations, practical forms, governance difficulties and management countermeasures. The analysis shows that industry-education integration connects curricula, faculty, facilities and research projects with industrial demand, while communities of practice convert participation, collaboration and knowledge sharing into situated learning and collective innovation. However, many current initiatives remain constrained by short-term cooperation, fragmented governance, insufficient faculty participation, weak knowledge-sharing mechanisms and outcome-oriented evaluation. To address these problems, the paper proposes a three-level management framework that links institutional governance, organizational collaboration and learning-process design. Specific measures include establishing stable joint governance bodies, co-designing curricula and authentic projects, building layered communities of practice, clarifying resource and intellectual-property arrangements, strengthening dual-capability faculty teams, and adopting multidimensional quality evaluation. The study provides a management-oriented framework for transforming isolated university-enterprise activities into sustainable collaborative education systems.