Governance for excellence and diversity? The impact of central and regional affiliation for the strategic positioning of
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Governance for excellence and diversity? The impact of central and regional affiliation for the strategic positioning of Chinese top universities Xilu Dong 1 & Peter Maassen 2 & Bjørn Stensaker 2
& Xiuling Xu
3
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
Through analysis of the strategic ambitions of China’s top universities, this article studies the relationship between governance structures at the system level and strategic institutional adaptations. In China, some top universities are governed directly by the national authorities while others have regional affiliations. By analyzing the strategic plans of a sample of universities in both categories the article examines how these differences in governance modes may impact the formal ambitions and objectives of the universities and discuss the potential system implications of these different governance modes, especially related to issues of excellence and diversity. The article find that differences in governance modes do affect the strategic positioning of Chinese universities, and different ways in which governance arrangements can be used to foster both excellence and diversity in a system perspective are discussed. Keywords World-class universities . Governance . Excellence . Institutional strategy . Institutional diversity
Introduction The functioning of higher education systems with respect to balancing excellence and diversity is a highly discussed topic internationally (Frank and Cook 1996; Marginson Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-02000516-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Bjørn Stensaker [email protected]
1
Institute of Education Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
2
Department of Education, University of Oslo, 0317 Oslo, Norway
3
Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089, China
Higher Education
2011). Driven by globalization and the emergence of global university rankings, it is possible to argue that excellence has become a key item on the university policy agenda in many countries (Hazelkorn 2015), often with subsequent worries that system diversity might suffer as all major institutions are forced to adapt strategically to the excellence agenda (Douglass 2010). This issue is also relevant in China. The Chinese higher education system is vast and diverse including both public and private colleges and universities. The total number of institutions of higher learning in the country is fast approaching 3000 of which more than 30% are private institutions. Most of the growth has still taken place in the public sector, and more than 2000 colleges and universities have been established by regional and local authorities in the country during the last decades (Bie 2015). The emphasis on the growth of the system does not mean that issues of excellence are absent from the policy agenda. Public authorities in China have during the last decades launched several policy i
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