Globalizing forces have both transformed the higher education sector and made it increasingly homogenous. Growing similarities among universities have been attributed to isomorphic pressures to ensure and/or enhance legitimacy by imitating higher education institutions that are perceived as successful internationally, particularly universities…

The growth of international branch campuses (IBCs) in China, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) accounts for a significant portion of the overall growth of IBCs globally. Conversely the largest exporter of IBCs globally is the United States, with several U.S. IBCs located in each of these importing countries. With the intention of focusing…

In a globalized world, universities face challenges adapting to changing environmental pressures and expectations of legitimacy. Studies on the topic have tended to focus on universities in North America and Europe, while Chinese universities have received less attention, perhaps due to their status as latecomers to global higher education. Based…

A new organization often encounters the liability of newness that increases its chance of failing as a startup enterprise (Freeman, Carroll, and Hannan 1983). New organizations located in a foreign country also face the liability of foreignness (Zaheer and Mosakowski 1997), as cultural differences make new foreign ventures especially risky.…

In view of the benefit of improving employees' organization commitment, it is important to study the major influencing factors of organization commitment. According to previous literature, organizational justice and job burnout have been considered two major influencing variables of affective commitment; however, little empirical research can be…

This study explores models of educational management used in postsecondary institutions in the five northwestern provinces of the People's Republic of China (Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang). As higher education in the People's Republic of China expands and undergoes significant changes, a nuanced understanding of the organizational…

The purpose of this study is to analyze the recent development of Chinese vocational colleges from two perspectives: the adoption of employability as a new institutional mission and organizational changes in six areas. The analysis is based on a multiple-case study. The analytical frameworks are developed from sociological theory and…

The distribution of science and technology resources in China has encountered a series of problems including, for example, scattered resources, unnecessary duplication and ineffective management. To facilitate access to these valuable resources, the Beijing Science and Technology Committee, a local government agency, established the Beijing…

Competition for scarce resources causes institutions to become more similar because the uniform environmental conditions of competition bring forth similar responses. Consequently, there is a convergence of institutional function structures elsewhere. National higher education systems worldwide have been moving from a specialized regime towards an…

Private higher education was probably the fastest-growing sector of postsecondary education worldwide at the turn of the twenty-first century. China is no exception. With the recent expansion and differentiation of higher education, private higher education, in conjunction with public higher education, has become a main force for enhancing the…

Purpose: For 40 years, it has been widely believed in the West that learning organisations would be healthier, flexible and more competitive than other organisations. By now, one might expect them to be widespread. However, fully developed learning organisations are rare in the West. In contrast, Chinese organisations seem naturally to be learning…

This study explores two specific cases of institutional mergers in the field of higher education. The two cases took place in China in the 1990s. One of the cases might be labeled a vertical merger and the other a horizontal merger. The former simply implies a merger between higher education institutions with equal status and the same level of…

In this essay, the author attempts to sketch a picture of Chinese educational transformation in the post-Mao era: its primary impetus, manifestations, and nature of change. The author argues that Chinese educational retrenchment is not a reform without strategy or intended destination as claimed ("cross the river by feeling for stones").…

China has one of the oldest educational testing systems in the world, yet its modern form was influenced by various western educational modes borrowed during the twentieth century. This essay reviews the history of the Chinese traditional educational testing system: its origin, features, and its past impact on Chinese people's lives as well as on…

Using a 1995 national survey of 2,870 Chinese private entrepreneurs, this article examines collaboration between private business and government in times of economic transition. Much as in the late 18th century situation in France as described by Tocqueville, special moments occur when a newly emerging business class offers monetary payments for…