“Brave new world": the challenges of managing quality in an international
branch campus
Professor Nigel Healey Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International)
Nottingham Trent University
5 May 2015
Overview
• What is an international branch campus (IBC)?
• How important are IBCs?
• Where do IBCs come from? Where are they located?
• Research study into managing IBCs
• The results: – The three dimensions of an IBC – The stakeholders of an IBC
• Conclusions
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What is an international branch campus?
• Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE) 2012 definition: an IBC is:
• ‘a higher education institution that is located in another country from the institution which either originated it or operates it, with some physical presence in the host country;
• and which awards at least one degree in the host country that is accredited in the country of the originating institution’
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How important are IBCs?
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Where do they come from? IBCs by home region (at March 2014)
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Asia
Europe
La-n America
Middle-‐East
North America
Oceania
Source: C-BERT
Where are they located? IBCs by host region (March 2014)
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Africa
Asia
Europe
La-n America
Middle-‐East
North America
Oceania
Source: C-BERT
The challenge of managing quality in an overseas subsidiary: what and how much to localize?
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IBCs are different from foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations because…
• Universities are not multinational corporations – Public or not-for-profit – Small, nationally-focused organizations - centre of gravity is the home campus – Run by academics, not global career executives – Traditional, arcane governance structures
• Higher education is not a competitive, unregulated market – Higher education is a public good – mostly subsidized, regulated – Quasi-command economy, not free market – Information asymmetries – government control over quality assurance
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If I knew the end of the world was tomorrow, I would move to a university campus …I would live much longer
Research study
Research questions:
1. What are the key dimensions of the IBC that managers feel under pressure to localize?
2. What are the main factors that influence their chosen degree of localization for each dimension?
3. How do these factors, and so the optimal degree of localization, change over time?
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Sample set
• Nine UK IBCs in United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, China
• 14 senior managers
• 5 experts (for background information)
• Interviews carried out in country, April-September 2014
• 90-120 minutes in length, transcribed and coded
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The results: preliminary observations
• IBCs are diverse in scale and organizational form
• IBCs are not ‘branch campuses’ as commonly understood – they are private companies/universities in which the home university often has a minority stake
• Some IBCs (not the ones in the study) are just offices
• IBCs are subject to quality assurance and regulation by home and host government
• Universities often lack administrative expertise to effetively manage an IBC
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Staff: how much to localize?
• Academic staff – Local staff – International staff – Seconded staff
• The trade-off of localizing staff:
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Academic culture Cost of provision
Curriculum: how much to localize?
• Curriculum – Content – Pedagogy – Assessment – Internal quality assurance
• The trade-off of localizing curriculum:
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Global equivalence Local relevance
Research: how much to localize?
• Research – Topics studied
• The trade-off of localizing research:
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International excellence Local impact
The University of Imperialism
The University of Localization
The University of Globalization
Possible models of localization
What to localize?
Imperialism Localization Globalization
Staff X √ √
Curriculum X √ X
Research X √ √
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The results: what stakeholders influence the degree of localization?
• External stakeholders: – Host country – government,
regulator, employers – Competitors – Students
• Internal stakeholders: – Joint venture partner – Home university – senior
management and staff
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Perceived attitudes of stakeholders to localization
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A framework for IBCs
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Conclusions
• IBCs are the highest profile form of transnational education
• IBCs vary hugely, but all expose home university to potential financial and reputational risk
• Research suggests that to succeed, IBCs must localize their staff base, curriculum and research
• The degree of localization depends on the objectives and relative power of the main stakeholders
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For more information:
• E-mail: [email protected]
• Website: http://nottinghamtrent.academia.edu/NigelHealey
• Website includes conferences presentations, papers and resources on transnational education
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