This chapter explores the potential of transnational history for researching global higher education policy. It begins with an overview of transnational history as a perspective…
Abstract
This chapter explores the potential of transnational history for researching global higher education policy. It begins with an overview of transnational history as a perspective, demonstrating how it is, in part, a response to processes of globalization that have also transformed contemporary higher education. Second, it reviews key features of transnational history as a perspective that can enhance global higher education policy research. The third part takes dimensions of contemporary global higher education and discusses how these can be approached through a transnational historical perspective drawing on the features outlined. The chapter concludes by highlighting how a transnational historical approach can enable new insights and research questions as well as some challenges presented by this perspective. The spatial focus of the chapter is predominantly European higher education, though the implications are more general.
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This scoping review aims to survey literature that covers employability preparation and labor market outcomes for graduates from transnational higher education institutions.
Abstract
Purpose
This scoping review aims to survey literature that covers employability preparation and labor market outcomes for graduates from transnational higher education institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
This scoping literature review uses career ecosystems as a theoretical framework and the context-input-process-outcomes model as a conceptual framework.
Findings
This scoping review confirms a limited research base of approximately 50 sources that primarily use qualitative methods and socio-economic theories to center the student voice and focus on international branch campuses in the Middle East and Asia. Notably, there is a lack of focus on staff experiences regarding the process of preparing students for employment. The review also demonstrates the need for more research on career processes and outcomes in transnational higher education.
Research limitations/implications
This scoping review is relevant to higher education institutions seeking to meet the challenges of preparing graduates for more than one national labor market. It has implications for universities' ability to attract students, develop relevant labor market preparation programming and understand whether the institution is addressing local employment needs. For researchers, it offers insight and impetus into the area of inquiry regarding transnational education, graduate labor market outcomes and employability.
Practical implications
Practical implications are drawn for students, parents, policymakers and transnational and non-transnational higher education institutions, as well as those who are engaged in providing international education and career advice.
Social implications
This review offers insight into developing labor market-relevant TNE programming, which may be helpful both for host and home country transnational education stakeholders interested in impact.
Originality/value
This is one of the first reviews to systematically address literature about employability preparation and labor market outcomes for graduates from transnational higher education institutions; in using career ecosystems theory, this review offers a bridge between international higher education and career studies.
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Peter Shanahan and Jenny McParlane
To provide a past, current and future perspective of transnational higher education for academics and managers engaged in this area of education provision, to heighten awareness…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide a past, current and future perspective of transnational higher education for academics and managers engaged in this area of education provision, to heighten awareness of the current trends and issues involved.
Design/methodology/approach
An Australian/Hong Kong case study and reference to current literature are used to highlight the main issues concerning this rapidly expanding phenomenon in the provision of higher education.
Findings
Identifies and discusses the main issues for consideration when planning new transnational activities, including the need for strategic approaches and risk management.
Research limitations/implications
The paper focuses on Australia and the Asian region, although material related to the UK and the USA is included in some sections. Whether a country is the provider or the receiver of transnational education, the issues raised will be relevant.
Practical implications
This paper provides a very useful source of information for those currently involved in or planning to become involved in a transnational higher education activity.
Originality/value
This paper is timely in that it addresses the recent proliferation of transnational higher education activities by considering the past and present, as well as providing discussion of potential future directions.
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S.M. Riad Shams and Rajibul Hasan
Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a…
Abstract
Purpose
Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a less explored research domain. Also, knowledge management for transnational education (TNE) marketing is not well-researched. Capacity building is an established research-stream, with a key focus on socio-economic and ecological development; however, prior research on capacity building from the context of TNE’s knowledge management and marketing is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyse TNE marketing mix, to understand the influence of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) on knowledge management in TNE to uphold their transnatioalisation processes through capacity building in TNEs’ marketing management.
Design/methodology/approach
An inductive constructivist method is followed.
Findings
Organisational learning from the context of transnational market and socio-economic competitive factors, based on analysing the transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) is imperative for proactive knowledge management capacity in TNE marketing. Following the analysis of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) to learn about the cause and consequence of the transnational stakeholders’ relationships and interactions, an initial conceptual framework of knowledge management for TNE marketing is proposed. Practical insights from different TNE markets are developed in support of this novel knowledge management capacity building framework of TNE, and its generalisation perspectives and future research areas are discussed.
Practical implications
These insights will be useful for TNE administrators to better align their knowledge management perspectives and propositions with their transnational stakeholders to underpin TNE marketing. Academics will be able to use these insights as a basis for future research.
Originality/value
This study proposes a novel conceptual stakeholder-centred capacity building framework for TNE’s knowledge management to uphold TNE marketing and supports the framework, based on practical insights from three different transnational markets.
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The principal goal of the article is to examine how Singapore, one of the East Asian tiger economies, has attempted to diversify its higher education system by developing �…
Abstract
Purpose
The principal goal of the article is to examine how Singapore, one of the East Asian tiger economies, has attempted to diversify its higher education system by developing “transnational education” in the island state.
Design/methodology/approach
With particular reference to the most recent education reforms and changing higher education governance in Singapore, this article focuses on how the Singapore government has changed its higher education governance models in enhancing the global competitiveness of its higher education system by adopting more pro‐competition policy instruments and allowing the growth of transnational education in the city state.
Findings
The findings suggest the choice of policy tools (the choice of market forces in higher education and the rise of transnational education in the present case) is highly political and governments should pay particular attention to the particular socio‐economic and socio‐political contexts of their countries when making such choices.
Originality/value
The paper shows that the role of government in East Asia is still important, especially when there is a strong need for government to set up appropriate regulations, social protection and welfare, hence, governments in East Asia are very much conceived as a complement to the markets.
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This study aims to unravel the tensions and convergences between market-oriented neoliberal education and state-serving transnational higher education (TNHE) practices through an…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to unravel the tensions and convergences between market-oriented neoliberal education and state-serving transnational higher education (TNHE) practices through an infrastructural lens within the broad context of post-pandemic geopolitics.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilizes a case study approach, with a diverse array of data collection methods, including observations, interviews and review of material/online documents issued by the TNHE-related institutions and the Chinese Ministry of Education.
Findings
The study identifies three findings: (1) Re-articulation of transnational infrastructures, valuing ‘glocal' education and casting immobility as advantageous yet quasi-mobile; (2) Infrastructural tensions arising from stakeholder contests over program control and (3) Infrastructural dialectics, illustrating how promised (im)mobility becomes a tightly regulated academic journey due to institutional constraints and conflicts.
Research limitations/implications
The findings elucidate the dynamic interplay between international education and TNHE amidst neoliberal pedagogical trends and pandemic-driven geopolitical shifts in China. While the interplay showcased a notable effect on Chinese students' (im)mobility during the pandemic, more empirical research is needed to understand international student (im)mobility issues in the post-pandemic era.
Originality/value
This study explores the infrastructural intersections between international and transnational education during the unprecedented Covid-19. Findings may provide a reference for policymakers and practitioners to strategize the “glocal” approach to international/transnational education in China after the pandemic.
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Quality assurance is a key concern in higher education, which is more complex in offshore transnational education (TNE), compared to onshore provision of education service…
Abstract
Purpose
Quality assurance is a key concern in higher education, which is more complex in offshore transnational education (TNE), compared to onshore provision of education service. However, higher education quality assurance is an established research domain; there is very limited work on the efficacy of industry-based total quality management (TQM) considerations to uphold quality in higher education, particularly in TNE. From this context, the purpose of this paper is to develop new insights in this under-researched area.
Design/methodology/approach
An inductive constructivist approach is followed to analyse extant scholarly views in relevant disciplinary areas to develop new insights, in relation to the significance of industry-based TQM in TNEs’ quality assurance.
Findings
Stakeholder orientation is recognised, as a significant consideration to uphold quality in TNE. Different stakeholders are identified, who would have substantial influence on TNEs’ TQM. How these stakeholders could influence the TQM process is clarified. Some empirical insights are also developed, in support of the arguments of the paper.
Practical implications
These insights will be useful for education administrators to better align their stakeholder relationships to underpin TQM. Academics will be able to use these insights as a basis for future research towards the significance of industry-based TQM in higher education.
Originality/value
Based on a stakeholder-focussed TNE TQM model, the findings represent an innovative strategic direction towards a better understanding of the significance of stakeholder relationships, pertaining to TQM in the contemporary higher education system.
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Fion Choon Boey Lim and Mahsood Shah
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics facing transnational education (TNE) in Australia through literature review in three major areas: policy changes in Australia…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics facing transnational education (TNE) in Australia through literature review in three major areas: policy changes in Australia and major importing countries of Australian TNE, and recent development in online learning and the impact of the prevailing TNE models. The paper concludes by shedding some light on how these changes could affect the sustainability of the growth of Australian TNE in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on review of literature and use of secondary data on TNE in Australia. The paper analyzes the external quality audit reports with focus on TNE. It finally analyzes the future sustainability of Australian TNE based on growth of higher education in Asia and emergence of online learning.
Findings
TNE is experiencing growth in Australia. Based on the current model such as setting overseas campus and partnerships, the growth may not be sustainable. The emergence of online learning and developments in Asian higher education may pose increased risk and competition. TNE has been subject to external scrutiny through the external quality agency in past. The current compliance-driven quality assessment may put the transnational quality assessment at risk with increased focus on assessing the quality based on review of documentation.
Originality/value
The paper is original and it is based on Australian TNE.
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This paper describes the parent–child relationships of upper-middle-class Chinese parents and their adolescent children who were “parachuted” to the United States for private high…
Abstract
This paper describes the parent–child relationships of upper-middle-class Chinese parents and their adolescent children who were “parachuted” to the United States for private high schools. With parents remaining in China and children in the United States, thousands of miles away, such a transnational educational arrangement complicates the already volatile parent–child relationships during the adolescent years. Through ethnographic interviews of 41 students and 33 parents, I demonstrate different forms of child–parent relationships in a transnational education setting: those who found that the further physical and temporal distance has brought the parent–child relationship closer through frequent communications, children who experienced “accelerated growth” yet questioned the necessity, and delicate parent–child relationships due to increasing transnational cross-cultural or intergenerational differences. These types of parent–child relationships are not comprehensive of all the lived experiences of the “parachute generation,” yet they shed new light on transnational education and the unintended emotional dimensions of educational migration. In a transnational context for an economically well-off group, parental absence or separation of children and parents is no longer a clear-cut concept and has different layers of meanings, taking into account the frequency of communication, duration of spring and winter breaks and the existence of third-party agents such as for-profit intermediaries (or educational consultants) and host families. The diverse patterns of parent–child relations reveal the heterogeneity and complexities of “doing family” across geographic spaces and global educational hierarchies, as well as the roles of communication technologies, the tempo of mobilities and educational intermediaries.
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This study aims to fill this research gap by providing a comprehensive exploration of the transnationalization of higher education in China and Asia, with a particular focus on…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to fill this research gap by providing a comprehensive exploration of the transnationalization of higher education in China and Asia, with a particular focus on how institutions maintain quality assurance and how student learning experiences are reported.
Design/methodology/approach
The transnationalization of higher education involves educational programs and services provided by institutions or universities in a country other than their home country where students from diverse countries are trained. The goal of transnational education is to offer higher education to students who face obstacles in physically entering the host country of a transnational program, encourage globalization, enhance cross-cultural communication and improve the quality of education by expanding students' learning opportunities, providing diverse educational experiences and elevating academic standards. The transnationalization of higher education has become a crucial endeavor in Asia, especially in countries such as China, Malaysia and Singapore, where rapid economic development and globalization have prompted the need to evolve into knowledge-driven economies to meet the increasing demand for higher education. The factors driving the expansion of transnational higher education in China and Asia include the desire for top-quality education, the allure of international students, the establishment of worldwide collaborations and aspirations to be recognized as centers of academic distinction. The rapid expansion and increasing importance of transnational higher education has underscored the vital role of quality assurance. To guarantee educational quality, maintain institutional reputation and improve overall student outcomes, several agencies and frameworks have been established to uphold international standards.
Findings
Based upon extensive literature reveiw and case analysis, our findings indicated the quality assurance assessment varies and is primarily influenced by host countries and provider polices. However, students in transnational higher education programs report satisfaction with their experienes and the quality of their programs, which tends to meet their expecations.
Originality/value
This study presents the first comprehsensive literatrue rewiew and case analysis of how transnational higher education in China, Sinapore, Malaysia and Vietnam uphold quality assurance and report students learning experiences. Additionally, the findings highlight why future researceh on this topic is crucial and why forestering colloboration among countries in Asian regions is imporant in term of growing geo-politics.