This paper discusses empirical comparisons of higher education institutions across world regions. It argues that institutional data systems have the potential for complementing global comparisons promoted by rankings by providing sensible information on institutional size, budgets, staffing, enrolments and activity profiles. With this perspective…

This study addresses stratification in the global higher education research community and the changing geography of country affiliations in six elite journals. The distribution of country affiliations is analyzed from a longitudinal perspective (1996-2018), and full-time and part-time authors in the field are contrasted. The prestige maximization…

Scholars' engagement with digital social networks is complex, warranting a comprehensive understanding of their use and participation. Current research has not yet grasped the motivators, gratification, and challenges that academics encounter across multiple digital social networks. With this in mind, this study surveyed scholars who purposely…

Amid debates about global university rankings (GURs), very few have closely examined how GURs' media outlets construct meanings of higher education (HE) in their visual representations. We critically examine 135 publicly available visual media (photographs) in the Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) websites to uncover the…

Methodological nationalism (MN) pervades higher education scholarship and practice, particularly in the arena of globalisation of higher education (HE) (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). MN refers to the assumption that national boundaries define the natural category or unit of analysis for society. Drawing on affect theories, this conceptual article…

By reviewing regulative documents and extant literature, this paper explores the realities and trends of international students in East and Southeast Asia (ESA). It also shows motivation and strategies of four new players in the international higher education sector in East and Southeast Asia i.e., China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. Apart from…

Universities around the world are increasingly orienting themselves towards global engagement in the form of internationalisation. This article examines how the importance of internationalisation and international research collaborations varies across institutions. Using data from the Fourth Global Survey of Internationalisation, it finds that…

This paper elaborates on recent trends in Japanese higher education partnerships through three cases of collaboration between Japanese universities and higher education institutions in China, Mongolia, and the Southeast Asia (hereinafter referred to as ASEAN). Our analysis shows that partnerships were shaped by both top-down government policies…

A singular vision has propelled higher education and ministries of education in Asia since the new millennium. It is a vision launched by the once rising tide of a globalized world order that spilled into higher education: in order to be competitive on the world scene, each Asian country had to build "World Class Universities," which…

Traditional assumptions favouring native English language countries in transnational higher education (TNHE) overlook experiences of international students in new emerging Asian education hubs. Specifically, there has been limited research relating to international students' choice for studying in Malaysia. Drawing from the "push-pull"…

Since the mid-1990s, the pressure of globalization and the pressing demands of a knowledge economy led to a series of educational reforms. The focus of these was the promotion of quality education and massification of higher education. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the governments in different parts of Asia have implemented…

In recent years, international accreditations have become an important form of quality management for business schools all over the world. However, given their high costs and the risk of increasing bureaucratisation and control, accreditations remain highly disputed in academia. This paper uses quantitative data to assess whether accreditations…

Background: World university rankings have been around for a decade and there are several such systems competing for the attention of higher education institutions. A frequent criticism is that they have a bias toward English-speaking countries and sciences; Europe and the Latin America have been vocal about this and are working on alternatives.…

In the era of globalisation, competition has also become global. In higher education, countries worldwide are attaching increasing importance to international ranking exercises and subscribing to the "world-class universities" paradigm, complemented by various strategies to benchmark with leading universities in order to enhance the…

The purpose of this article is to analyse the nature of the global hegemonies in higher education. While anti-colonial thinkers describe the dominance of the Western paradigm as an oppression of indigenous culture and knowledge and as neo-colonialism in higher education, their arguments lead to such questions as how much self-determination do…