Internationalisation of Higher Education Strategies in China: Using Institutional Theory and Demand-Driven Analysis

Abstract

The term “Internationalisation of Higher Education” (IHE) stresses the “process” instead of “outcomes” in education. It integrates an international, intercultural, or global dimension to cope with the academic environment internationally. China opened its markets by joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which emphasises the free trade context regarding international academic mobility coming under the domain of the freely traded market. Two main forms of cooperative Transnational Education (TNE) ventures are the collaborative/joint programme and international branch campuses (IBCs). For a more comprehensive understanding of the strategy of IHE in China, the three pillars, including regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive pillars in institutional theory, can be employed as a possible framework to examine the organisations and organisational change. The three pillars offer explanations of different rationales of structures, practices and beliefs by its own mechanisms and processes. In addition, the Demand-Driven/Benefits Analysis will be used to explain the reason why these strategies are implemented. Four demand driven inputs can be evaluated from the perspective of the demands in the process of TNE, these are students’ demands, marketing demands, financial demands and social demands.