Although many attempts have been made to clarify how academic knowledge can be used in practice, there are not many empirical results that shed light on the process of developing academic knowledge from practical experience. The aim of this study is to examine to what extent an authentic learning environment supports master students in both…

In recent decades, universities have put considerable emphasis on their 'Third Mission' and have thus expanded their portfolio of core activities to include activities related to university-industry collaboration and science commercialisation. An important mechanism to implement the university's third mission is the creation of academic spinoffs…

While comprehensive research has been conducted on the Bologna Process (BP) as well as on the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the roles of the social sciences in these reforms have remained mostly overlooked. Based on a systematic literature review of articles and reports from 1999 to 2018, we analyse the interplay of social sciences with…

When investigating students' motivations to enrol in university, a wide range of elements related to the overall student experience should be taken into account. The current study moves from this point to analyse students' choice factors from a survey completed by 27,504 students across 23 Italian institutions by means of a logistic principal…

Studies of how contextual factors influence teachers' approaches to teaching have chiefly focused on face-to-face teaching in physical campus contexts. This study advances understanding of how applicable this knowledge is in digital contexts. The study explores how university teachers perceive the differences between teaching in physical campus…

This study focus is on career boundaries to graduate employability in a crisis economy. The underlying theoretical framework focus on career boundary theory and perceived employability. The empirical findings are based on a small-scale qualitative study that includes five focus group interviews conducted with Portuguese graduates of both genders…

Research excellence has been the main thrust of higher education reforms in several countries, but its translation into coherent policies has proved to be controversial. Literature has delved into the role exerted by contextual factors and individual characteristics in the adoption of behaviours inspired by social values. Our study aims at…

Our paper examines the rise of a new category of professional support staff whom we refer to as 'audit-market intermediaries' in the context of a rapidly changing regulatory and funding environment in British higher education. We explore the roles they play in articulating environmental changes in research-intensive universities related to the…

The authors analyze the profile and dynamism of the Japanese higher education system in comparison with the higher education systems of other East Asian countries, with special reference to East-West hybrid patterns. The authors reflect on the development and transformation of Japanese higher education, especially its interaction with neighboring…

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 academics from various disciplines in both UK and Chinese universities, this comparative study aims to offer new insights into how academics in British and Chinese universities maintained work-life balance and the similarities and differences experienced between academics of both countries. This study finds…

Recent Australian media scandals suggest that university students are increasingly outsourcing their assessments to third parties -- a behaviour known as 'contract cheating'. This paper reports on findings from a large survey of students from eight Australian universities (n = 14,086) which sought to explore students' experiences with and…

The study explores how sense of global connectedness can be enhanced by creating opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue in higher education. Thematic analysis of randomly selected 15 learning journals, students' reflections on their learning during an international seminar was used to identify students' significant learning experiences. The…

Expanding from the customer-service perspective, the present research investigated emotional labor, defined as "service with authority," in an academic context. Drawing from previous research on display rules and power, tenure and gender were hypothesized to influence the extent to which college faculty labored to provide "service…

This paper aims to deal with lingering governance issues of a prestigious university in a developing country of Southeast Asia. It provides a description of environments, changes, and university stakeholders' perceptions in terms of governance arrangements of Chiang Mai University (CMU), which was selected as a National Research University in…

New Zealand, like many countries, faces the challenge of building and sustaining an educated population. Particular challenges are posed by the need to educate an increasing proportion of the population to higher levels in order to support the growth of a modern skills and knowledge economy, as opposed to an economy built on low-cost labour and…