Strategic management of internationalization : towards a model of theory and practice

Abstract

The research is concerned with examining the process of internationalization within higher education and specifically within UK Business Schools. The fieldwork includes the first ever national survey of such institutions conducted in 1992 and was followed by detailed case studies of two institutions - one in the UK and the other in the Netherlands, both of which included staff and student interviews. The findings examined the existence of policies and strategies, as well as critical factors for success, reasons for failure, obstacles and probable future directions. The results show that internationalization within the UK is taking place in a variety of ways, with little or no consideration of the strategic management of the process and is driven both by the need to increase fees from overseas students and to attract external funding such as that available from the European Commission. The thesis goes on to provide a fractal process model of internationalization which can be equally used by individual academics, as well as departments, faculties, institutions, national systems of education or for transnational organizations. The model is located within a conceptual framework developed using the methodology of grounded theory. The thesis concludes with an examination of possible future trends within higher education before returning to first princples in the form of a re-examination of the reasons for internationalization