Performance evaluation of industry-education integration in higher education from the perspective of coupling coordination-an empirical study based on Chongqing

performance, industry and education can achieve economies of scale through expansion, pro- mote growth in industry and education, enhance competitiveness in industry and education, and indirectly improve or directly intervene to optimize irrational structures in industry and education through public policies. Therefore, decomposing the indicator system from three aspects: structure, conduct, and performance is expected to reflect the intrinsic logical relation- ship achieved in the integration of industry and education. (1) Industry subsystem. In terms of structure, industrial structure is also called sectoral structure of the national economy, which refers to the composition of the various industrial sectors and within each sector. The proportion of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries reflects the proportion of different industries in the national economy, and it is a typical indi- cator to measure industrial structure. According to the theory of industrial structure evolution, the main problem of industrial structure is the rationalization of industrial structure, that is, the coordination between industries, strong ability to transform industrial structure, adapt to changes in market demand, and produce good economic and social benefits. The overall pro- portion of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in GDP reflects the proportion structure of each industry in the entire national economy. Adjusting industrial structure is a fundamen- tal condition for China to achieve stable and sustainable economic development, a main way

to improve economic efficiency, and an important factor to promote the transformation of economic growth mode. Meanwhile, adjusting and optimizing industrial structure is of great significance for expanding employment, improving people’s living standards, reducing energy and material consumption, reducing environmental pollution, improving ecological environ- ment, transforming trade growth mode, and improving international competitiveness [41]. In terms of conduct, industrial scale reflects the increase or expansion in quantity in the development of industry and is the basic manifestation of the level of industrial development. The basic goal pursued by the development of industrial scale is economies of scale, that is, the cost of products decreases and returns increase with the expansion of production and business scale. The benefits brought by economies of scale are reflected in the reduction of the cost of production and operation of enterprises. Conversely, an unreasonable scale is not easy to pro- duce economies of scale, which is not conducive to forming a competitive advantage, resulting in a serious waste of resources. Industrial scale is a basic factor that the state needs to consider when formulating industrial policies. The industrial scale is reflected by the scale of output value and the organization size of industries, and the level of industrial development and growth is reflected by investment growth, output value growth, and profit growth. Industry performance is reflected by both input and output. Input refers to the sum of

human resources, material resources and financial resources invested in the development of various industrial sectors of the national economy is the basic condition and material basis for industrial development. According to the life cycle theory of industrial development, the basic issue that should be considered in industrial investment is to adopt different investment levels and allocation strategies at different stages of its development, rationally allocate relatively scarce resources, produce the most suitable goods and services with the least resource con- sumption, and obtain the best benefits. Industry output refers to the final results of production and business activities of various industrial sectors of the national economy in a certain period and its contribution to economic and social development, which reflects the development effi- ciency of the national economy, embodies the increase of industrial economic benefits and the improvement of labor productivity. The level of industrial investment is comprehensively reflected by human resource investment, fixed asset investment, and various energy inputs, and the level of industry output is reflected by profitability and per capita output, forming the following indicator system. as shown in Table 1. PLOS ONE Performance evaluation of industry-education integration in higher education based on coupling coordination PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308572 September 18, 2024 8 / 22