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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) flagship universities in moving the agenda of regional integration forward through academic/research collaboration and cooperation.

Flagship universities are leading universities in the national higher education systems of countries that make up the ASEAN. This study on the ASEAN’s flagship universities is based on a three-pronged strategy, namely, a literature review, analysis of websites contents, and citation of supporting pieces of evidence from other relevant studies to support arguments. Using the QS top universities in Asia 2016 listing, top 70 public universities in ASEAN were selected for investigation. In instances where public universities in a particular ASEAN country were not listed in the QS listing, a premier public university of that country was then selected for investigation.

There is a tendency for ASEAN’s flagship universities to look beyond ASEAN, primarily to establish vertical collaboration, which is important to their efforts in creating their image and enhancing their reputation. As a result, academic/research collaboration among flagship universities and collaboration between these universities and other universities in ASEAN is glaringly on the low side. Interestingly, to move the regional integration agenda in ASEAN, other intermediary agencies outside of ASEAN, such as in the European Union, are very active in providing a platform for both flagship and non-flagship universities to collaborate.

While regional collaboration and cooperation within ASEAN and East Asia have been discussed elsewhere, this paper has utilised and expanded Douglass’ (2016) idea of flagship universities to include regional relevance for the purpose of regional integration of ASEAN.

Universities in Malaysia, particular public universities, have been tasked not only with the traditional focus on the pursuit of knowledge, but also the important role of nation-building. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nation-building agenda in the development of Malaysian higher education in the globalisation era.

Grounded within the literature of nation-building and globalisation and neoliberalism, the approach of this paper examines the development of higher education in Malaysia across time.

Two particular aspects in the Malaysian higher education that have seen tension and changes emerging from the interaction between globalisation and nation-building are: the medium of instruction and hybridisation in universities.

The paper illustrates the ways in which universities have adapted in terms of the medium of instruction between the Malay language and English, as well as hybridisation that has taken place as a result of globalisation on the local vision, structure and characteristics of Malaysian universities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, in general, what are the contemporary external influences that have been dominant in Malaysian universities and what are the major local traditional practices that are also found in these universities.

From the literature review, the paper proposes a conceptual framework to explore hybridity in governance and management, programs and curriculum, teaching and learning, and research and service.

Using the conceptual framework, the paper discusses the Malaysian higher education in terms of Western influence and indigenization of Western models, the background context of Islamic universities and seven possible hybridities compiled from anecdotal evidences.

The conceptual framework and possible hybridities identified in the paper serve to provide the guide to a more systemic empirical investigation to examine the characteristics of Malaysian universities emerging from the interaction between external influence and local cultures. The Malaysian case also potentially contribute in exploring the question, “Are Asian universities different from Western universities?”.

This study aims to investigate the trend of research on universities and accountability (UAA) in Southeast Asian (SEA) countries.

A total of 115 journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters were obtained from the Scopus database spanning the years 1996–2023. These documents were subsequently analyzed using bibliometric methods.

The majority of UAA in SEA documents were published between 2007 and 2023 (106 documents, 92.19%). Scholars from both SEA countries and outside the region, particularly Australia, co-authored UAA in SEA documents. While scholars from Vietnam contributed the highest number of UAA in SEA publications (30 documents), scholars from Australia received the highest number of citations (878 citations). Collaboration between Vietnam and Australia emerged as the most productive partnership in conducting studies on UAA in SEA. Additionally, UAA in SEA documents were published not only in education-related outlets but also in other sectors, particularly in public policy. Furthermore, studies on UAA in different countries exhibited both similar and dissimilar interest keywords.

This study represents the first bibliometric analysis focusing on UAA in SEA literature. The insights and implications derived from this study are valuable for future researchers, university leaders and policymakers.

This study, drawing upon affective events theory (AET), examines the relationships between work environment features, work events, affective states and attitudes in the Malaysian academic environment. Specifically, the authors examine the impact of supervisory support and welfare on role conflict, the impact of role conflict on affective states and the impact of affective states on job satisfaction using data collected from the international faculty.

The authors collected data from 152 respondents through an online platform, and given this study's causal predictive-explanatory nature, the authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis. In addition, the authors complement their analysis by examining the nonlinear effects within the model as a robustness check.

From an explanatory perspective, the authors find support for all the hypotheses, implying the applicability of AET in academic contexts. Regarding the predictive perspective, the authors’ model exhibits a high out-of-sample predictive power. Importantly, the robustness check provides additional support for their model.

Given that the international faculty comes from different countries, the authors’ findings suggest that university managers should formulate and implement policies, which encourage and celebrate cultural diversity to increase the international faculty's job satisfaction. Additionally, policies that improve the process of job designs and descriptions need amendments in a way that reduces the role conflict faced by the multicultural faculty which, in turn, leads to negative affect and ultimately to job dissatisfaction.

This article is one of the first research studies focusing on the verification of AET in the context of international higher education. The authors apply the recent evaluative guidelines for a solid and rigorous PLS-SEM analysis and prove that the wandering scholars' emotions matter in achieving desirable organizational outcomes in cross-cultural institutions of higher learning.

As people again consider what the future holds for higher education, this paper aims to provide a review of the futures documented for higher education. Authors including McNay; Schuller; Bourner et al.; Abeles; Avila and Ledger; Tynan and Lee; and Melville‐Ross, have scoped the future for higher education. This paper aims to consider the structure of these predictions and to explore the changes that have been proposed.

The analysis of literature in this paper refers to documents produced by: governments and their agencies; books; and academic articles. This categorisation is based on the framework used by Tight. Two additional constraints are placed on the literature to keep it focused and manageable. First, the literature is restricted to publications in the English language. Second, the literature is limited to material published in the last 20 years. The rationale for this restriction is that the majority of futures research is produced with a 20 year horizon.

Numerous ideas on the future of higher education have been proposed over the last 20 years. Authors have proposed ideas under a range of themes. Although no significant pattern emerges, repeatedly authors have proposed change in relation to: access, teaching, institutional design, funding, ICT/virtual delivery, the student experience and the needs of the economy/labour market.

The value of this article is to help create some order, providing an overview of previous writing on the future of higher education.

This chapter considers the ways in which city images “travel” and are consumed at a distance. A significant body of existing research has examined UMPs in terms of attempts to produce particular images of cities for global circulation. Much less attention has been paid to assessing the “success” of imaging strategies – the means by (and extent to) which city images actually circulate and are consumed. Focusing on the travel of UMPs constructed in and around the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur (KL) in the 1990s, the chapter seeks to provide a corrective to the production-centeredness of existing scholarship. Extending fieldwork-based research carried out in Malaysia in the 1990s, the chapter focuses on a series of accidental “encounters” with KL's UMPs outside Malaysia. Part of the aim of the chapter is precisely to begin to think about how the “consumption” side of UMPs, and associated effects, could be examined in more systematic ways in the future. Extra-Malaysian encounters with KL-sited UMPs such as the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) project are examined in terms of a range of means through which city images circulate: in film and TV performances, as tourist souvenirs and planning models, in building height charts and commercial advertising, and even through academic practices. Most instances in which UMPs are “consumed” at a distance might be banal and seemingly unworthy of study but, collectively, they can serve to forge new imaginings which, in turn, can have profound material implications for the cities concerned.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the policies and practices of internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia, and to specifically explore how Sustainable Development Goals are translated into policies and practices.

This paper takes a chronological and historical approach to examine policies and practices on internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia. This includes identifying patterns, trends and shifts on internationalisation at the system and institutional levels.

At the system level, Malaysia has transformed from a sending to receiving country, from being an aid recipient to an equal partner, and from a host to a provider. At the institutional level, internationalisation transforms from a fad to a norm, and from having unilateral collaboration to setting up multinational collaborations with international partners. Equally important, the paper discusses the role of internationalisation to address the global Sustainable Development Goals, and identify policy gaps at the national level and the de facto practices of Sustainable Development Goals at the institutional level.

This paper charts the changes of internationalisation of higher education in Malaysia, and importantly, shows gaps to incorporate the global Sustainable Development Goals and to relate this global agenda to the internationalisation of higher education.

Given the increased emphasis on embedding the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in the curriculum, research, engagement activities and operations of higher education institutions, this comparative study aims to replicate an earlier international study of Turnaround Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education (TLSHE) in the unique context of Malaysia and Japan. This paper also presents a case for closer focus on developing Education for Sustainability (EfS) leaders in institutions of higher learning.

This study is a quantitative comparative research. The authors collected data for EfS-related variables from lecturers affiliated with Malaysian and Japanese public and private universities. Building on the data and results from the TLSHE study, this study made a series of within- and between-sample descriptive comparisons from different angles and levels. To generalize the findings, this study used gender and experience outside higher education as control variables and compared the academics from the Malaysian and the Japanese institutions through the path modeling framework.

The comparisons showed that except for two domains, namely, contextual factors influencing EfS leadership and the EfS leadership development approaches, the means of all other domains based on the data collected from the Malaysian sample were the highest, followed by means from the international TLSHE sample, and finally the means from the Japanese sample. This study also observed that transparency, engagement with EfS initiatives at different levels, passion for teaching and learning, and creative and lateral thinking were among the top indicators. The inferential tests revealed significant differences between the academics from Japan and Malaysia as well.

The findings of the analyses can be used to ensure that the selection and development of EfS leaders (in this case, lecturers who may be formal or informal EfS leaders), not just at the central but at the local level in the distinctive context of Japan and Malaysia, focus on what counts and the good ideas embodied in the 17 UN SDGs are actually put into practice. This study has also highlighted the policy implications with respect to the gender and the previous work experience of lecturers outside higher education sector in more detail.

This study compares the perceptions of two samples of academics from Asian countries with the perceptions of the international TLSHE sampled EfS leaders in terms of EfS leadership-related issues and therefore, increases the awareness of academic community in this regard. It also highlights the role of lecturers (e.g. professors) as intellectual academic leaders in achieving SDGs. Moreover, this study shows that lecturers’ gender and previous work experience outside higher education should be considered when developing and implementing policies on EfS leadership.