Talent management in transnational higher education: strategies for managing academic staff at international branch campuses

The study investigates the practices of academic staff talent management at international branch campuses, with the aim of identifying a range of practical strategies that may address the unique challenges of managing talent in campuses located far away from the home country. These strategies are intended to improve service quality and add value to institution profiles. Based on an online questionnaire, ad hoc email correspondence and publicly available information, five case studies are presented. Talent management emerges as a key strategic area, directly managed at dean/president level. Referrals and online portals are commonly utilised as channels to attract talent, and the need to sometimes uplift local packages to recruit and retain talent is recognised. It is concluded that the development of academic staff should be viewed as an investment, and the availability of research funding and teaching awards on campus may be used to attract, develop and retain talent.     

The role of transnational networking for higher education academics

Amidst rapid socio-economic change, higher education (HE) academics across the world face major challenges to its organisation, finance and management. This paper discusses the role of transnational networking in higher education. Data from 40 interviews with geographically distributed academics engaged in learning and teaching transnational networks (TNNs) were analysed. The findings show that in an increasingly globalised higher education system, transnational networking goes beyond conference attendance to entail multiple combinations of offline and online activities. We do not think that current concepts of communities of practice or networks of practice accurately describe these phenomena. Instead, we suggest that these activities entail different and varying levels of tangibility, more accurately defined by us as TNNs. Moreover, we argue that the term ‘network’ in this context facilitates the individualistic pursuit of a career increasingly essential in a pressurised higher education environment.     

Country of origin and country of service delivery effects in transnational higher education: a comparison of international branch campuses from developed and developing nations

Over the last decade, international branch campuses have been established by universities from developing countries as well as developed countries. Little research has been conducted into students’ perceptions of branch campuses from different countries, or how universities from different countries compete in the increasingly competitive market. A framework incorporating the concepts of country of origin and country of service delivery is adopted to assess how potential undergraduate students in Malaysia perceive the home and international branch campuses of universities from the United Kingdom (UK) and India, which are used to represent universities from developed and developing nations. It was found that for a university from a developing nation, students perceived the image, reputation, quality and brand equity of its home campus more positively than its international branch campus. The results suggest that although all universities must devise and implement strategies that enhance the image and reputation of their international branch campuses, institutions from developing countries should seek niche markets where they do not have to compete directly with prestigious universities from developed countries.     

Eduscapes: interpreting transnational flows of higher education

‘Knowledge society’ and ‘knowledge economy’ are current buzzwords in the visions of the future made by nations, regions and federations on a global scale. A concrete outcome of this is the globalisation and intensification of higher education and research. The visions based on a knowledge component should be treated as expressions of an ideology. In this article we use the notion of ‘eduscapes’ and ‘imaginaries’ as analytics for an understanding of such visions as these are expressed by individuals and institutional actors involved in educational landscapes. The argument is made that this notion is less ideological and more apt for an analysis of globalisation of higher education.     

Implementing strategy in higher education

Conclusion From the profit sector we may learn that strategy is a great challenge, but also a difficult job. There are good reasons to assume that for a large-complex non-profit organisation such as a university, with organisational features of both the nonprofit and the professional organisation, the process will be even more difficult. The implementation of the strategy process in particular may cause a lot of trouble. The model presented here can be used as a simple but proven method to control this implementation process and may serve as a good guiding principle for real strategic management in a university.     

The need for context-sensitive measures of educational quality in transnational higher education

This paper argues that the current approach to educational quality formation in transnational higher education promotes educational imperialism, and that guidelines and practices should be altered to embrace context-sensitive measures of quality. The claims are sustained by findings from a study that investigated how academics understood and pursued educational quality in an Australian university programme delivered in partnership with a Chinese university in China. A key finding was that a home programme functioned as the single reference point for quality in the programme delivered in China. Quality in the China programme was sought through the imposition of practices and philosophies associated with the home programme, which required the suppression of local educational traditions. The paper points out that reliance on a home programme as the single measure of quality is encouraged by governing UNESCO/OECD guidelines on quality in cross-border provision.     

Responding to crises in transnational education: new challenges for higher education

This paper is based on a case study of an Australian university involved in the delivery of transnational programs in an educational environment that has been increasingly characterized by commercial considerations. The researchers conducted focus group interviews with both general and academic staff to ascertain the personal, academic and administrative issues affecting the delivery of educational programs in Asia that arose as a result of one particular crisis in 2003: the SARS epidemic. The findings indicate that both administrative and academic staff felt personally and professionally challenged by the complexity of the issues involved in interrupting the pattern of transnational teaching. Potentially conflicting rationales emerged through the focus group discussions, with administrative staff expressing concern with maintaining services, while lecturers articulated a preoccupation with the safeguarding of assessment standards.     

高等职业教育教学改革中现代教育技术的应用策略研究

高等职业教育与普通的大学本科教育不同,不是教授学生理论知识,而是主要培养学生们的操作、实践能力,这就决定了其主要方向是以学生的综合动手能力和实际作业能力为主。所以,现代高等职业教育教学就要以增加培养学生实际实践能力为重点来进行。尤其是近些年来,许多高职院校积极使用改变教学方针,对传统教学进行改革,积极探索、大胆突破,为学生获得良好的职业教育方面有着不俗的成绩。并且在改革中使用多种现代教育技术相结合的手段,取得了非常丰硕的改革成果。本文就对高职教学改革中现代教育技术的应用策略做出一些研究。     

国际高等职业教育发展趋势分析

高等职业教育既是职业教育的重要组成部分，又是高等教育的重要力量，各国对此都表现出了前所未有的重视和关注。从发达国家的发展经验来看，高等职业教育均呈现出相同的发展趋势，即：高等职业教育管理的法制化；高等职业教育理念的终身化；高等职业教育发展的国际化；高等职业教育对象的多样化；高等职业教育手段的现代化；高等职业教育体系的高移化；高等职业教育考核的标准化；高等职业教育动力的自主化。     

The distinction between academic standards and quality: implications for transnational higher education

Although the conceptual distinction between academic standards and the quality of learning opportunities is fundamental to an understanding of the role of quality assurance in higher education, the distinction, and its implications, have not always been well understood in the case of transnational higher education. This paper explores both the source of academic standards and the criteria by which the quality of learning opportunities can be judged. It is argued that the distinction is of particular importance in the context of transnational education, because whilst judgements about quality may legitimately be susceptible to a degree of cultural influence, the same is not true of judgements about academic standards. It is suggested that a lack of attention to the logical distinction between standards and quality has hampered efforts by regulatory régimes around the world to develop coherent policies with respect to hosting transnational higher education provision.     

推动高校后勤改革构建和谐校园

教育和谐是社会主义和谐社会的重要组成部分,构建社会主义和谐社会落实到教育,就必然要求构建和谐大学校园。高等学校应积极推进后勤社会化改革,为建设和谐校园提供强有力的保证。本文从后勤改革的角度,为建设和谐校园提出了对策。     

创业教育中高职校园文化活动的设计

创业对社会经济发展有重要的推动作用,创业者的核心素质可以通过创业教育来培养.高职教育作为当前中国高等教育的一种重要类型,要适应21世纪社会经济发展的需要,培养创新型经济人才,就必须实施好创业教育.在创业教育中,通过改革创新校园文化活动,实现育人功能的转变,促进创业教育,真正塑造有创新思维、创新意识、创业能力的综合型人才.     

The experiences of students with learning disabilities in a higher education virtual campus

Institutions of higher education are increasingly asking students to use the online environment, or virtual campus, when carrying out business related to college life. In this paper, we report findings from a study conducted to learn more about the experiences of college students with learning disabilities as they interacted with this virtual campus. Sixteen college students with documented learning disabilities were observed and interviewed while completing eight tasks in a virtual campus environment. Tasks were chosen from those typically performed by college students and included such items as locating the email address of an instructor, locating a journal article in the library’s online database, and identifying the textbook for a course on the bookstore webpage. Findings indicate that these participants were both successful and not successful in task completion within the virtual campus. Factors that impacted performance included features of the virtual campus and participants’ implementation of cognitive and behavioral strategies.     

Memoir as a form of auto-ethnographic research for exploring the practice of transnational higher education in China

In this paper, I argue that memoir, as a form of auto-ethnographic research, is an appropriate method for exploring the complexities and singularities in the practice of western educational practitioners who are immersed in the social reality of offshore higher education institutions, such as those in Mainland China. I illustrate this proposition by showing how my own use of memoir is guided by a need to interrogate the unique experiences of my past life as ‘the foreigner’, ‘the special one’, ‘the imported expert’ and ‘the cultural outsider’, in order to lay bare the complexity of what it means to work and live in China as a foreign teacher and be recognised as different. I am interested in the notion of foreignness, and the ambiguities that arise when one operates as a teacher in a foreign culture, with a misguided and naïve understanding of one's own specialness as the foreign expert. My research methodology is based on critically reflective writing that acknowledges the multiplicity of historical, cultural and social differences, and the uniqueness of all individuals, whilst recognising that difference, at its heart, is a matter of relationship(s). This form of writing as educational research makes it possible to challenge some of the generalisations western scholars inadvertently make when writing about their teaching experiences in China.     

论高校战略管理

战略管理包括战略规划、战略实施和战略评估。高校战略管理中,要抓住几个关键点:外向性是战略的主要特点,定位是战略的核心,舍弃是战略的精髓,战略实施是战略管理的主体。高校战略管理具有复杂性、灵活性、差异性等特征。当前,高校战略管理中要十分重视战略实施。