Connecting Academia to Industry Requires Sustainable Research Mentorship: Professor George Kofi Amoako
A renowned and one of the top 3% leading marketing scholars in Africa, Professor George Kofi Amoako has stated that, “Sustainable Research Mentorship is the best model to connect Academia to Industry for national socioeconomic development and advancement” .
Sustainable Research Mentorship leads to synergies between academia and industry which has a resultant impact on innovation, knowledge sharing, advancement and collaboration across all the spectrum of national economy.
According to Professor George Amoako, a lot of students who complete postgraduate studies at the Doctoral and Master’s level are unable to conduct top-notch research both in academia and industry largely due to lack of sustainable research mentorship model across almost all the Universities globally.
He said that, this huge gap has created a disconnection between knowledge acquisition and practices in the industrial or corporate working environment, and as a result, Ghana and other Countries especially the third World Countries are unable to fully utilize the research potentials of graduates of various universities.
Professor George Kofi Amoako stated that, “qualifications without significant research and publications are meaningless to Society, Industry and Academia”.
Professor George Kofi Amoako has therefore called for the urgent need for University Communities across Ghana and African Countries to institute a Sustainable Research Mentorship Model and Regime that would compel Supervisors and Examiners to further mentor and co-create research expertise with students especially postgraduate students since mentorship is integral to research capacity building.
According to Professor George Amoako, “linking theory to practice in the industry or corporate environment would require sustainable research mentorship”.
With the Sustainable Research Mentorship, the academia and industry would continue to work together harmoniously to foster value co-creation, innovation and knowledge transfer.
With his envious 30years experience both in the industry and academia, Professor George Kofi Amoako has significantly contributed to industrial research, and academic research. For research contributing to the growth of the Industry, he has supervised to successful completion of 28 Doctor of Business Administration(DBA) and MBA theses/dissertations.
For academic contributions, he has supervised, and co-supervised to successful completion of 9 PhD Dissertations/Theses, and have been an Examiner for over 40 PhD,DBA,MPhil and Masters theses/dissertations. Currently, he is supervising and co-supervising PhD and masters students within and outside Ghana.
Prof. George Kofi Amoako has mentored and continue to mentor a number faculty and students across both public and private universities in Ghana and abroad.
In 2023 he published 23 articles and book chapters and 18 of which were indexed in Scopus.
Prof. Amoako won the 2022-2023 Academic year Best Researcher Award at Ghana Communication Technology University.
To demonstrate his mentorship interest,Prof Amoako has published with undergraduate masters and doctoral students in reputable journals.
He provides corporate training and capacity building & development programmes for professional bodies, reputable profit-making companies, and non-profit organisations such as universities and government agencies.
Professor George Kofi Amoako is highly interested in both the positivism and interpretivism approach to research. He has keen interest in combining both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to leverage on the advantages that come from both research philosophies. He has done over 30 national assignments for Ghana Tertiary Education Commission(GTEC) over the past 5years. He has research interest in sustainability, marketing, branding, business strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility.
