Constructing internationalisation in flagship universities from the policy-makers perspective

• Published in: Higher education Vol. 70; no. 3; pp. 359 - 373
• Main Author: Gao, Yuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Science+Business Media B. V 01.09.2015; Springer Netherlands; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Ausland; Auslandsbeziehungen; Australia; Australien; China; Colleges & universities; Comparative Education; Divergence; Education; Educational aspects; Educational institutions; Educational Policy; Educational Strategies; Elgar, Edward; Foreign Countries; Global Approach; Globalization; Higher Education; Hochschule; Institutional advancement; International aspects; International cooperation; International education; Internationalisation; Internationalization; Lehre; Perception; Policy Formation; Program Implementation; Singapore; Singapur; Strategic Planning; Student; Studium; Universities; University administration; University role; Australia; China; Singapore; Netherlands; University internationalisation; Construct of university internationalisation; Singapore; Australia; China
• ISSN: 0018-1560; 1573-174X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10734-014-9834-x

Internationalisation has become a central concern in today's higher education and has been developed as an explicit institutional-wide priority. However, as many researchers argue the meaning of internationalisation remains ambiguous and unclear. The majority of existing studies on the phenomenon are case based or focus on the divergence of intuitional motives and strategies. With all has been known about the differences, a shared construct has yet been established to theoretically conceptualise the phenomenon. This article explored university practitioners' perceptions of internationalisation, in order to construct the phenomenon. To construct university internationalisation, by and large, means to identify the comparable elements of the phenomenon across individual cases and contexts. Specifically, university policy-makers from 17 flagship universities in Australia, Singapore and China were involved in the investigation. The findings show considerable commonalities in the major motive that drives institutional internationalisation, the strategies that universities develop for internationalisation and the approach to implement internationalisation strategies. These similarities enable the establishment of an integrated construct of university internationalisation. This is not to say that university internationalisation is understood and implemented in the same manner in universities across different countries. The observed divergences are also discussed and linked to the influential contextual factors. The findings of this study contribute to the theorising of the widely discussed phenomenon by answering the key question that in what way university internationalisation can be constructed. (HRK / Abstract übernomen)