Relational Capital and Academic Programme Sustainability: A Qualitative Study of Partnerships in Fort Portal Private Universities

Abstract

This study aimed to examine how relational capital, expressed through partnerships and collaborations, supports the sustainability of academic programmes in private universities in Fort Portal City, Uganda. The concern is practical as much as scholarly. Private universities outside Uganda’s major metropolitan centres are expected to sustain credible programmes, yet they work within thin resource environments shaped by tuition dependence, limited public support, uneven household incomes, and modest industrial linkages. Much of the existing debate treats resource mobilisation as a financial or managerial matter, leaving well the everyday relationships through which programmes are kept alive, made relevant, and connected to practice less well understood. Guided by Resource Dependence Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Social Capital Theory, and the Institutional Capacity Model, the study explored how private universities mobilise, negotiate, govern, and convert external relationships into academic value. A qualitative approach, framed by an exploratory case study design, was adopted. Data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 24 academic and administrative leaders from the two private universities operating in Fort Portal City, supported by unstructured observations. The data were analysed thematically using ATLAS.ti version 7. Findings revealed five partnership pathways: strategic and high-level partnerships; academic and industry knowledge collaborations; financial mobilisation and cost-sharing arrangements; community-based and NGO engagements; and local business partnerships for applied practical training. These relationships supported scholarships, curriculum review, teaching materials, examination systems, internships, clinical and practicum placements, guest teaching, equipment access, field supervision, and indirect cost savings. Still, their usefulness was constrained by donor fatigue, shifting partner priorities, weak follow-up, informal agreements, over-reliance on individual networks, and limited internal capacity to sustain engagement. The study concludes that academic programme sustainability in Fort Portal private universities is not simply financed; it is relationally assembled. Durable sustainability requires formalised partnerships, shared governance, diversified stakeholder engagement, and stronger institutional capacity to turn relational capital into dependable academic support.