Editorial

This issue of Higher Education Quarterly (HEQ) contains research around a series of extraordinary important topics related to the current challenges for Higher Education worldwide. Indeed, the studies presented here are analysed through a variety of disciplinary approaches and empirical methods, and they concern state-of-art Higher Education in several countries.

One topic of continuous investigation is the reason that stimulates students to migrate within a certain geographical area. The literature has focused its attention to this issue for a long time—see the debate about the mobility of international students in the European context described in King and Ruiz-Gelices (2003). In particular, there are numerous studies about the United States (US), where the students are extraordinarily mobile, and authors have explored factors that make some regions and institutions more able to attract nonresident students (see, for example Baryla & Dotterweich, 2001). Single universities, which are increasingly aware of the ‘competition’ between institutions, even started to treat the problem from a managerial perspective, developing strategies to increase their visibility, reputation and attractiveness (Maringe, 2006). In general, existent studies reveal that students migrate for many reasons, such as the search of better job opportunities and the search for more prestigious educational quality (see the conceptual model in Faggian, McCann, & Sheppard, 2007), although distance plays an obvious role (Alm & Winters, 2009). The study by Rao and Andini, published in this Issue, analyses the factors that attract students to the Indian region of Karnataka from other regions of the country. It contributes to the current academic debate in two main ways. The first is by providing evidence about a less-known reality—one of Indian Higher Education. The second is by using a mixed-methods approach for answering the research question about the reasons that move the students to migrate to the region under scrutiny. In a preliminary stage, hypotheses are built by means of a Focus Group Discussion with a sample of 25 students who migrated to the region. The empirical analysis is based on a Structural Model that uses data from a survey designed specifically on the hypotheses previously developed. The results help our understanding of the most important factors behind the students’ choices and can be used for important managerial and policy decisions.

A related issue is that of the way in which universities promote themselves, as seen from a supply-side view. Indeed, Higher Education institutions are creating instruments and actions for becoming attractive and gain reputation, as a purposeful strategic direction (Steiner, Sundström, & Sammalisto, 2013). The theoretical framework based on strategic behaviours of universities is mainstream nowadays (Shattock, 2010). Among the various strategies to compete and to develop an individual strategy of a Higher Education institution, the development of new courses has a prominent role. This is the perspective taken by Pizarro Milian and Missaghian in this Issue. Their study specifically looks at how interdisciplinary courses are promoted externally as a means for competition and for building an institutions’ reputation. The specific object of analyses are the Sociology courses offered in Canadian universities, these are explored by means of a marketing approach, along with the texts used for promoting the courses. The authors reveal their findings that courses use three ways to make themselves appealing: claiming for better knowledge, better opportunities in the job market, and promising more flexibility in building a students academic experience. The results reported in the paper are coherent with the models of national-based competition between academic institutions, as the one proposed by Marginson (2006), which predicts that universities tend to differentiate from each other by using various tools, including their educational offer.

Two papers here challenge some views about the role of doctoral studies. Dealing with this subject is fundamental given that the nature and development of postgraduate studies is at the centre of an intense debate. For instance, it is worth recalling how Bao, Kehm, and Ma (2018) sketch the new, multiple purposes that are now required for doctoral students, with a particular attention to undergoing reforms and reflections in Europe and China, and how Kehm (2006) compared the types and scopes of doctoral education in Europe and the USA. The growing accepted view among academics is that postgraduate studies within PhD should serve not only the research necessities of universities, and the scholars of the future; instead, they should be seen in strict connections with the knowledge demand of the economy and society at large. Barnacle, Schmidt and Cuthbert address the role of the PhD in current societies where education in creating ‘expertise’ is undervalued. While a PhD is traditionally conceived as the pattern for reaching the highest level of knowledge, useful for society and economy (Cox, Adams, & Omer, 2011), this role is put in crisis by the growing scepticism about the importance of education to create real expertise—in a view where generalist knowledge is more important than a specialist one. Such changes in the way knowledge is created and used require rethinking the role of the PhD. The debate about this issue is open, and there are many papers with varying ideas and approaches (Nyquist, 2002; Taylor, 2011). Therefore, the reflection proposed by Becker tackles the point from an innovative perspective, the necessity to listen to the requirements of key stakeholders of universities. In the author's words: ‘…further research is needed to understand more fully the nature of PhD graduates’ engagement beyond the academy with industry, governments, NGOs and in enterprises they have formed.’ In a related vein, the study by Hladchenko and Westerheijden highlights how Ukrainian doctoral students perceive the usefulness of their educational path. The results are derived from a survey of 125 doctoral students, which focus on analysing students self-esteem, self-efficacy and satisfaction. The paper forms part of the wider debate about the role of PhD education, and concentrates on the viewpoint of the students themselves. While previous studies investigated the factors affecting doctoral students’ satisfaction (see, for example the Zhao, Golde, & McCormick, 2007 concerning the choice of the supervisor, and the analysis of difficulties of PhD students in Sweden proposed by Appel & Dahlgren, 2003), this paper adopts an innovative view in proposing a theoretical framework based on the existence of means-ends gap. The framework is part of the wider picture on the changing nature and evolution of the role of PhD education which is discussed in a second paper published in this Issue.

Two papers deal with the governance of Higher Education institutions and in particular with the role of institutions’ leaders, although from very different angles but with similar attention to the leadership function—which is a relevant discussion in the field, attracting growing interest and controversy (Amey, 2006; Lawrence, 2006; Trow, 1985). The paper by McNaughtan and McNaughtan concentrates on a specific decision of universities’ presidents in the US, namely that of engaging with contentious issues. The paper uses a specific case—the one of communicating about the Presidential election—to explore a wider topic, the role of university presidents in taking part in public, nation-wide debates. How university presidents should exert their leadership has been discussed by previous conceptual and empirical academic analyses (see Birnbaum, 1989). In the work published here, interviews are conducted to understand what makes a president engage with contentious issues, attempting to explain the relative roles of external pressures and internal desire of promoting values to society. Read this way, the topic is well-connected with the question of the wider interconnections between Higher Education institutions and their communities (as outlined by Jongbloed, Enders, & Salerno, 2008), and the role of presidents is that of being the frontline speakers for prompting key messages emerging from academia to their external constituencies. The key innovation of the paper is the establishment of a new theoretical framework to describe and understand why presidents engage in a public role about controversies and discussions—at the same time, this paves the way to further research in the field. The contribution by Dopson and colleagues also concerns the leadership of Higher Education institutions, but with a more ambitious objective. In particular, they realise a systematic literature review (32 studies) to describe the evolution of the topics about leadership development in the academic literature. One particular contribution of the paper in this Issue is that it provides indications for designing Higher Education leadership development activities. The discussion brings new evidence and suggestions to a well-developed stream of existing studies and analyses. For example, the study by Spendlove (2007) mapped the key competencies of people who assume leadership roles in Higher Education institutions, pointing out how some important skills are specific to the Higher Education field (and not related with transversal leadership abilities). This aspect is also corroborated by the work of Dopson and colleagues. It is relevant to remind us that specific problematics of leadership styles and practices in universities were highlighted by Bolden, Petrov, and Gosling (2008) who concluded that multilevel and multilayered roles are necessary for effective institutional leadership—another finding echoed here. Considered together, the two papers about leadership constitute a substantial advancement of the knowledge about key topics in this well-explored area.

Another research theme treated in this Issue is the quantitative assessment of research performance of universities. The problem of adequately measuring and assessing the performance of Higher Education institutions in realising their core mission of research has attracted scholars’ interest for a long time—see the exercise proposed by Johnes and Johnes (1993). The paper by Szuwarzyński, deals with the efficiency of research productivity of Australian universities, as measured in 2005. The Australian case has been the object of numerous previous academic contributions, as for example Avkiran (2001), Abbott and Doucouliagos (2003), Worthington and Lee (2008), and Lee (2011). Nevertheless, Szuwarzyński's paper is the first using the novel statistical method based on Benefits-of-the-Doubts (BoD). Also, it includes a wide array of different indicators for measuring the quantity of quality of research production, such as the number of papers published in the Web-of-Science and corresponding citation figures. The author sensibly indicates practical ways of using the findings, especially from the perspective of institutions’ decision-makers. The academic debate around the important challenge of measuring academic results (in particular, efficiency of research) is far from finding uncontroversial verities (Johnes, 2006), and in recent years has gained growing attention (Witte & López-Torres, 2017). It is important to provide space for new evidence, methods and ideas—and this work fuels further debate around this issue, with the specific attention to the important context of Australian Higher Education.

Finally, there is the intriguing topic of academic plagiarism. While there is intense attention to academic plagiarism between students, and the ways in which it can be detected (Meuschke & Gipp, 2013), much less is known of professors’ behaviour towards their students. The study by Becker starts to fill this important gap. The empirical analysis is based on perceptions reported by graduate students where their work has been plagiarised by their professors (from a sample of students in the US). The problems that emerge from the interviews call for serious attention from university administrators, and the author reasonably calls for more procedures to be put in place to detect and deal with such episodes.

Taking all the contributions here, the international reader has the opportunity of meeting different viewpoints and findings from on-the-edge debates surrounding the study of Higher Education in its multifaceted views: student migration, institutions’ heterogeneity (and competition), new forms and aims of doctoral studies, perspectives of leadership (role of presidents and development of leadership professionalism), the measurement of efficiency and productivity, new problems posed by academic plagiarism. The evidence reported in the various papers stem from different methodologies (qualitative and quantitative) and are interpreted in the light of several disciplinary fields. Higher Education Quarterly confirms its nature and tradition of a plural academic space where discussions and evidence can find a way to reach a wide and vibrant community of scholars engaged with the most important issues in the field.