In a knowledge economy, the generation of competitive advantages in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is based on intangible assets of Intellectual Capital (IC) such as quality in teaching, research, innovation, image, reputation and relationship with stakeholders. This knowledge area has aroused the interest of HEIs managers and the…

This study examines international brain race for world-class universities as measured by the QS World University Rankings (QS) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities, particularly in the context of Asian nations' institutional competition and benchmarking against American counterparts. Applying mixed methods with statistical analysis of…

For U.S. research universities, cluster hiring has become a popular means to add faculty members in university-defined priority fields. The expectation of advocates is that these faculty members will collaborate on high-impact research. Utilizing a national sample of 168 cluster-hire faculty members from eight U.S. research universities, we find…

This study utilises an institutional logic perspective to explore the dynamics and complexity of academic personnel system reforms at leading Chinese universities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 participants from 10 highly ranked universities; these interviews obtained the views of key observers on four main reform initiatives:…

Research publication has increasingly turned into academics' top priority around the world. Since researchers' professional survival/growth in the current competitive academic atmosphere hinges upon their research profile, there is a need for investigating how researchers' possible selves may guide their research productivity. Therefore, in this…

Abstract The academic profession is internally divided as never before. This cross-national comparative analysis of stratification in Higher Education is based on a sample of European academic scientists (N = 8,466) from universities in 11 countries. The analysis identifies three types of stratification: academic performance stratification,…

Before the 2000s and the buzz surrounding global rankings, many countries witnessed the emergence and development, starting in the 1970s, of academic media rankings produced primarily by press organisations. This domestic, media-based production, despite the relative lack of attention paid by the social sciences, has been progressively integrated…

New public management and increasing levels of competition driven by global rankings are bringing the managerial practices of public and private higher education institutions closer together. However, these two types of institutions still maintain different objectives and traditions and enjoy different degrees of autonomy that are reflected in…

Drawing on research conducted at National University of Ireland, Galway, this paper explores how senior managers at an Irish university are seeking to measure and facilitate academic performance in the context of national and global competitiveness and a higher education landscape that appears firmly inflected by neoliberal ideas of rankings,…

Introduction: Our study critically engages with techniques of self-quantification in contemporary academia, by demonstrating how social networking services enact research and scholarly communication as a "game". Method: The empirical part of the study involves an analysis of two leading platforms: Impactstory and ResearchGate. Observed…

The increasing importance of the competition in global university ranking has resulted in a paradigm shift in academic governance in East Asia. Many governments have introduced different strategies for benchmarking their leading universities to facilitate global competitiveness and international visibility. A major trend in the changing university…

A prestigious reputation is the primary success factor in higher education because it attracts resources necessary to sustain growth. Among research-intensive universities (RIUs), research performance is a key driver of institutional reputation. Achieving an accelerating rate of growth of research performance is the desired objective of all RIUs…

Can all the universities that claim to be "world-class" actually live up to the claim? If they could, would that be desirable public policy? It could be that there are so many different meanings of "world-class" that the term in practical effect is an oxymoron: the definition of "world" is determined locally when conceptually it should be defined…