Globalization and Regionalization

NUMBER 57, FALL 2009

Canadian Universities’ Strategies for Internationalization

Sally-Ann Burnett and Jeroen Huisman
Sally-Ann Burnett is a higher education consultant and 2008 doctoral graduate of the Business Administration in Higher Education Management program, University of Bath, UK. E-mail: contact@saburnett.com. Jeroen Huisman is director of the International Centre for Higher Education Management, University of Bath, UK. E-mail: j.huisman@bath.ac.uk.

The press and academic literature have focused on universities that embraced globalization, attracting a large share of foreign students to their campuses or launching global research networks. Indeed, notice is also taken of failures—such as a university dismantling an overseas branch campus a few months after its launch. Less attention is paid to the “average” higher education institution—possibly limited by its location, the regional/local mission, a lack of prestige or status—but the strategy seeks to broaden its internationalization strategy in response to globalization. Another gap in the existing literature involves how institutional culture relates to internationalization strategy and activities. We have tried to meet this deficiency by studying four comparable Canadian universities in Ontario. Mainly undergraduate and relatively small, three of these institutions had less than 8,000 students, and one had about 17,000 students. We analyzed background documents from the government and the institutions, carried out site visits to the campuses of the institutions, and interviewed senior faculty and staff working in the area of internationalization.

Ontario’s image as one of the most multicultural societies in the world enhances its universities’ efforts to develop their internationalization activities. The higher education institutions are relatively autonomous, with the latitude to develop their own missions and strategies. The government lacks clarity with respect to its internationalization program, which gives institutions little guidance on how to progress. This situation becomes complicated by the two-tier government and provincial and federal responsibilities for different, and sometimes overlapping, aspects of higher education. The lack of a clear national strategy—with financial incentives for students and institutions—results in a meagre 1 percent of higher education students going abroad for study. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has been promoting Canadian higher education lately, but a number of institutions still “suffer” from the lack of international appeal.

Responses to Globalization
A surprising similarity was found among the universities regarding a focus on international recruitment, although they differed considerably in achieving this objective. International enrollment ranged from 1.2 to 8.5 percent, and main countries of origin also differed greatly. Emphasis varied on student versus staff mobility and on internationalizing the curriculum versus international research cooperation. The main reasons for internationalization—particularly international student recruitment—were portrayed as the value of student diversity as well as revenue generation.

We found that the institutional cultures influence responses to globalization. Two of the four universities, nurturing an entrepreneurial culture, showed the most systematic and extensive strategic response to the challenges of globalization. The fact that one of these universities also had elements of a bureaucratic culture did not inhibit the development of an effective strategic response. The university characterized as collegial and autocratic and one collegial/entrepreneurial university had a much more marginal strategic approach.

Conclusion
Bearing in mind that the evidence is limited to four universities, the findings support the notion of a relationship between an entrepreneurial culture and the type of strategic response to globalization challenges. However, developing an appropriate comprehensive strategic response to globalization is not simply a matter of changing the culture. The literature on organizational culture shows that changes cannot happen overnight. Contextual factors such as governmental policies continue to play an important role.

Finally, there were indications in our research that culture and strategy may mutually reinforce each other: achievements in the area of internationalizing the curriculum, catering for student diversity, and other factors may reinforce an entrepreneurial spirit or help to spread an entrepreneurial culture across the university. Assuming that the four universities would like to broaden their internationalization portfolios, we recommended specific activities and strategies for each of the institutions. These recommendations ranged from making the vision and mission more explicit, developing appropriate budget allocations, giving internationalization a specific place (metaphorically and geographically) in the organizational structure, to developing strategic alliances with Canadian and/or foreign partners.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number57/p12_Burnett&Huisman.htm