Chinese University Administrations: Chinese Characteristics or Global Influence?
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Original Article
Chinese University Administrations: Chinese Characteristics or Global Influence? Tom Christensena,b
and Liang Mab
a
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] b School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China. E-mail: [email protected]
In this article, we examine the units of the central administrations of Chinese universities to ascertain to what extent they reflect Chinese structural and cultural characteristics or global templates, seen through certain administrative units in the US model of excellence for universities. We describe and analyze the main features of the Chinese university administrations and compare our case with similar US studies. The data from the websites of 174 universities reveal that the main structures of Chinese university administrations are highly standardized and that apart from some notable differences across differently ranked universities they are homogeneous. We also find that Chinese universities are structurally distinct from their US counterparts in most respects, but there are also some similarities. Most universities have set up development offices similar to the US ones, but few have diversity or legal offices. These findings suggest that Chinese universities diverge strategically from global trends but there is some selective convergence. Higher Education Policy (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-020-00208-8 Keywords: university administration; China; diversity office; development office; reputation management
Introduction Traditionally, one thinks of universities primarily as what Olsen (2007) has labeled ‘self-governing communities of scholars’, where university activities are governed by internal factors, with shared norms and values, and focusing on academic freedom, free inquiry, truth finding, scientific rationality and expertise (Aberbach and Christensen, 2018). Accordingly, universities should have institutional autonomy, independent of superior authorities and other external interference as they are best qualified to organize and conduct their own activities. In recent decades, universities around the world, which often lag behind developments in the US (Ramirez and Christensen, 2013), have progressed in a more multi-dimensional direction, becoming hybrid institutions — ‘representative
Tom Christensen, and Liang Ma Chinese University Administrations: Chinese Characteristics or Global Influence?
democracies’, ‘instruments for national political agendas’, ‘components of the knowledge economy trend’, and ‘service enterprises embedded in national and international competitive markets’ (Olsen, 2007). These tendencies are connected to a whole range of university reforms (Amaral, 2008; Ferlie et al., 2008; Paradeise et al., 2009a, b). First, decision-making systems in universities have become more democratic in the sense that the professors no longer monopolize the decision-making process, and a range of academic and non-academic staff are includ
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