The international business of higher

educationPhilip Warwick

Durham University Business School

Aims of the Paper To evaluate the internationalisation

of HE using a managerial lens.

• By Combining three literatures:– HE management,– Internationalisation of HE, – Strategic management,

• I suggest that there are three major challenges to internationalisation.

• I propose a set organisational pre-requisites.

• And conclude that internationalisation requires partnerships across the whole organisation, it can’t be left to groups of enthusiasts to sort out.

Global competition in HE• Academic Capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie 1997),

• The best research reputation,• Attract international research income,• Attract the best academic staff,• Secure the best position in international and

domestic league tables,• Recruit the best home and international

students.

Defining Internationalisation

• International,• Global,• Trans-national Education (TNE),• Globalisation – the catalyst for changes,• Internationalisation – the organisational response.

• The generally accepted definition of Internationalisation in HE is…

‘… the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post secondary education’ (Knight 2003: 1).

1st Major Challenge

What is internationalised Higher Education?

Internationalisation in UK HE

• Progress is slow.• Many universities have had an international

strategy for 10 years,• Emphasis remains on student recruitment.• Still a gap between web site pronouncement and

classroom delivery.• Some new modules or programmes with a few

international case studies is not enough, there is…

“…a tendency to talk the talk but to baulk at the walk”. (Grant 2013: 3)

2nd Major Challenge

Implementing Internationalisation

strategy.

Managing complexity• Fast moving external environment.• Multiple stakeholders and customers.

• A consumer paradigm.• Professional service organisations.• Change negotiated not imposed.

Player Managers

• Managerial skills, knowledge and experience. • VC appointments. • Weaknesses implementing strategy. • Top team can struggle to see the linkages.• Muddling-through is very common.

3rd Major Challenge

Lack of management skills, knowledge and

experience.

Leadership and management

• Upper Echelon Theory and Stages Theory.• Organisations with international experience more

likely to go off-shore.• Organisations with international top team members

more likely to consider the needs of international staff and students.

• Universities with a prestigious reputation are more likely to be risk averse.

• Universities with a weaker reputation are more likely to take on a higher level of risk.

Literature review findings• Internationalisation is ill-defined and often misunderstood.• Done well, it will transform the organisation

– Enhancing the learning environment,– Produce internationally focussed research and teaching,– Students ready to work in the global economy.

• UK universities lack the management knowledge and experience to lead this type of transformation.

• Rather than engaging staff, top teams tend to focus on student recruitment and research reputation.

• The internationalisation of teaching and learning and the student environment tends to be led by small groups of individual enthusiastic internationalisers.

Pre-requisite organisational qualitiesfor successful internationalisation

1. A formal systematic approach to strategic management with some flexibility to allow for changing circumstances,

2. Maintain a focus on the agreed outcome of internationalisation,

3. Maintain a close link between the organisation’s resource capabilities and its external environment,

4. Develop a clear plan for how the internationalisation strategy is going to be implemented,

5. Develop, maintain and use effective two way communication routes with staff,

6. Provide appropriate and on-going staff development opportunities to support internationalisation,

7. Provide clear and visible leadership and an on-going commitment to internationalisation from the top of the organisation,

8. Adopt a review system which can monitor and evaluate progress and revise the strategy as necessary.

Research method and findings.

Four Case Studies

• HE context could potentially distort the focus on process and content.

• Minimise the impact of context by careful case selection,• A discrete set of seven UK universities set up in the 1960s (not

the Redbricks, Civics, ex Advanced Colleges of Technology, or Post 92s) – but the Plateglass group of universities:

Lancaster,

Sussex, Kent,

York, Essex,

East Anglia, Warwick.

Findings 1

1. Defining internationalisation:

– No clearly understood definition of what it is,– Makes comparison very difficult,– Narrow definition/wider definitions,– Can you be successful with a narrow definition?

Findings 2

2. Implementing the strategy

– Literature review suggested that getting staff engaged is difficult – need a critical mass,

– Case studies show this to be the case,– Internationalisation centred on a few

departments. Apart from attending international conferences, many untouched by internationalisation.

Findings 3

3. Management capacity– Senior managers do not lack enthusiasm for

internationalisation,– But there are weaknesses in the knowledge and skills

needed to lead change in a large professional service organisation.

– There is a marked tendency to formulate but not implement strategy (Strategies remains paper documents),

– There is a tendency to concentrate on measurable targets to the exclusion of the softer aspects of change.

– Organisations with more of the pre-requisite qualities (slide 13) made more progress.

Conclusions• It is not a lack of enthusiasm, rather poor management

practice that is the cause of faltering internationalisation strategies in UK universities.

• Academic staff do not share a universal understanding of what internationalisation actually entails.

• The case studies suggests that possession of the pre-requisite organisational qualities will improve the implementation of internationalisation

• Internationalisation enthusiasts need to work in partnership with the organisation to achieve their aims.

Organisations as partners

Done well internationalistation will enhance the whole organisation.

Unfortunately the evidence suggests it is not being done well!

If it contributed to NSS rankings would it be done well?

Selected references A-HBreakwell G and Tytherleigh M. 2010 University leaders and University performance in the United Kingdom, is it who leads or where they lead that matters most, Higher Education 60: 491-506.Friedman T. 2005 The World is Flat, a brief history of the globalised world in the twenty-first century, London: Penguin.Grant C. 2013 Losing our Chains? Contexts and Ethics of University Internationalisation, Stimulus Paper Series, London: Leadership Foundation for HE.Hambrick D. 2007 Upper Echelons Theory, an update, Academy of Management Review 32, 2, 334-343.Knight J. 2003 Updating the definition of Internationalisation, International Higher Education, 33, Fall, available at http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/news33/textoo1.htm (accessed 18/10/2007).Preston D and Price D. 2012 I see it as a phase: I don’t see it as the future, academics as managers in a UK university, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 34, 4, 409-419.Slaughter S and Leslie L. 1997 Academic Capitalism, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.