Search results

This study aims to present how an inter-organisational cooperation network can contribute to the competitive performance of higher education institutions (HEI) and also to students’ academic performance. The intention is also to examine how knowledge-sharing processes should develop to meet the needs of maintaining cooperation networks.

This study adopts a qualitative approach, using the case study (network) method. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, group interviews and documentary analysis. The convenience sampling technique was used. Data analysis was carried out through a data triangulation process.

The general benefits arising from cooperation networks are encouraging. The HEIs improved not only through creating an environment that supports learning processes and knowledge-sharing efficiently, but also through cooperation between students and lecturers.

The cooperation network experience studied here can be used by other universities or HEIs as an approach/strategy to launch a cooperation initiative in order to increase levels of knowledge, learning, innovation and competitiveness. The results also help university or HEI leaders to understand the importance of academic cooperation networks, letting them form innovative teaching strategies that stimulate academic and competitive performance, as well as economic growth.

The central elements of originality lie in advancing a new vision of cooperation networks, creating a new, innovative framework that considers the dimensions presented from the theoretical and practical point of view. The framework helps to understand what is necessary for network cooperation to develop and create value for HEIs. Combining different perspectives of the cooperation network inevitably represents a significant innovation.

Traditional studies in the sociology of science have highlighted the self-organized character of the academic community. This article focuses on recent interrelated changes that alter that distinctive governance structure and its related patterns of competition and cooperation. The changes that we identify here are contractualization and large-scale cooperative research. We use different data sources to exemplify these new patterns and discuss the illustrative role of research clusters in German academia. Research clusters as funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) are both a highly prestigious scarce good in the competition for reputation and resources and a means of fostering cooperation. Our analysis of this German example reveals that this new institutional configuration of universities as organizations, academic researchers, and the state has a profound effect on organizational practices. We discuss the implications of our empirical findings with regard to collegiality in academia. Ultimately, we anticipate a further weakening of collegial bonds, not only because universities and the state have become more active in shaping the nature of academic competition and cooperation but also because of the increasing strategic and individualistic orientation of academic researchers. In the final section, we summarize our findings and address the need for further research and an international comparative perspective.

This chapter discusses a paradigm shift in the internationalization of higher education (IHE) in relation to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, redirecting the focus from a “competition” to a “cooperation” orientation in this process. The disruptions caused by the pandemic in physical academic mobility, often equated with IHE, enabled the switch to virtual mobility, including more academics and cooperation in the process of IHE. In order to illustrate and ground the discussion proposed here, this chapter describes a study carried out in a Brazilian public institution, using a mixed methods approach, combining bibliographic and document research techniques with the analysis of notes from staff meetings and class observations. The analysis of notes taken during classes and meetings held through virtual exchanges (VE) and/or a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project, carried out during the pandemic in the university analyzed, contrasted with the bibliographic/document analyses suggests a paradigm shift from academic mobility (for a few students only), with a “competition” orientation with partners mainly from the Global North, to a more inclusive and cooperative process, with different languages and more universities around the world. The authors conclude that virtual and alternative approaches such as VE/COIL can foster the development of more inclusive Internationalization at Home (IaH) processes, with a “cooperation” orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively review one example of academic-industry cooperation, namely, the partnership arrangements between the CFA Institute and universities around the globe. There is a scarcity of literature relating to academic-industry cooperation between the finance discipline and business.

Relevant data were hand-collected and a comprehensive analysis of individual CFA partner programs was undertaken, including the geographical distribution of the programs and program characteristics and ranking of partners programs; the motivation for and approaches of universities toward the CFA Institute partnership and program design are identified. The general findings are validated with a detailed analysis of the CFA partner postgraduate programs offered in Australian universities.

The research finds that the primary focus of cooperation between the CFA Institute and universities is the adoption of practitioner-relevant academic curriculum in universities, which should assist in setting industry educational standards. The authors observed a great diversity of partner institutions and programs around the globe, their rankings and their approach to cooperation with the CFA Institute thanks to the flexibility of their partnership arrangements. This explains the rapid growth of universities seeking formal cooperation with the CFA Institute. However, this growth has created challenges for the CFA Institute in managing and delivering value in their partnership arrangements.

Due to data limitations, the research does not provide an empirical analysis of factors driving enrollments in Australian postgraduate finance programs.

The paper serves as a guide to universities interested in engaging in cooperation with the CFA Institute. This study is also useful for the professional bodies that evaluate various models of cooperation with educational institutions.

The paper is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to examine the practical aspects of cooperation between universities and a professional body in the finance discipline. Moreover, it is the first to evaluate perceived benefits and problems universities may experience by entering into a popular CFA Institute Partner Program.

Three different governing boards of higher education in Louisiana joined together to create the Louisiana Online University Information System (LOUIS). Key players in this endeavor describe progress from an idea formulated in 1990 to the 1993 reality of an effective statewide online system. Improved services to users and more effective use of collections are examples of what the various libraries throughout Louisiana are expecting to realize from this collective action. Various lessons learned are detailed. Budget components are addressed openly. In 1993, the state of Louisiana was awarded a federal $2.48 million grant that enabled the completion of this statewide infrastructure. Other states contemplating a statewide library network may want to look closely at the planning for and implementation of LOUIS.

While the formal structures of universities may predominantly reflect ceremonial rather than functional purposes, attempts at changing them are usually a fertile ground for academic conflicts. Taking this apparent contradiction as a starting point, the aim of this article is to explore the intriguing role of formal structures in academic settings. Drawing on a case study of a merger and organizational restructuring process in an academic research centre, it shows how symbolic responses to institutional pressures may have actual consequences on research practices, beyond myth and ceremony.

The paper explores library cooperation in Zimbabwe and gathers views from librarians on the need for a library consortium model to underpin national development. This study aims to investigate the development of library consortia in Zimbabwe and then propose a model that will both accelerate their development and support the country’s national development agenda.

The paper opted for an investigative study using a multi-method research design. Data on existing library consortia, namely, Zimbabwe University Library Consortium (ZULC) and College and Research Library Consortium (CARLC), were collected through questionnaires and interviews. The data were complemented by documentary analysis including primary sources of information, for example, annual reports and brochures. Data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

The paper provides empirical insights on how ZULC and CARLC are transforming the provision of library services in several ways, for example, providing for the dynamic needs of users and strategizing on overcoming rising costs of scholarly content through resource sharing. The proposed model effectively elevates the fundamental library consortium principles of cooperation and sharing onto the national development stage, and it is novel and pioneering. The gestures and general remarks made recently by Zimbabwe Library Association and some ZULC members about national development and ZIMASSET are given rigorous and scholarly expression in this model.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability beyond Zimbabwe. It is therefore imperative for researchers to test the proposed propositions further.

The paper includes implications for the development of a library consortia model to underpin national development in Zimbabwe. The existing academic sector library consortium still excludes other types of libraries from participating in resource sharing and promoting access to information on a national development scale. The proposed library consortium model providing for nation-wide access to information is critical in realising national development goals in Zimbabwe. Currently, academic library consortia are contributing immensely through supporting learning, teaching and research in their respective institutions. Such benefits can also be extended to all institutions through a national library consortium to support development in Zimbabwe.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how the development of a nation-wide library consortium model can be realised. There is relatively little researched information on library cooperation and library consortia and national development in Southern Africa with specific reference to Zimbabwe. The paper seeks to close the gap by providing information on library cooperation and library consortia and national development in Zimbabwe.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the comprehension of the role that geographic proximity plays in relation to non-spatial proximity in the context of international university-industry knowledge transfer.

The paper is designed as a multiple-case study. It looks at selected instances of contract research at Tallinn University of Technology that represents a typical technical university in Central and Eastern Europe characterised by relatively short period of market economy and university-industry cooperation.

The results indicate that there emerge different configurations of proximity nationally and internationally. In case of domestic cooperation cognitive (education), organisational, social and institutional (institutional setting) proximity exist simultaneously with geographic proximity. International cooperation is characterised by lack of geographical proximity, but the existence of cognitive and social proximity indicating a substitution.

The research is limited to analysing instances of contract research and relations between spatial and non-spatial forms of proximity. Further research could consider the differences between various channels of knowledge transfer and address the relationship between non-spatial forms of proximity.

The paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by using proximity dimensions operationalised at aggregate and individual levels to study the university knowledge network. It is proposed in this paper that attention has to be paid to distinguishing between organisational and individual levels of analysis and their differing results. Proximity at organisational level does not necessarily translate into proximity between individuals and vice versa.

This article provides an overview and analysis of 50 years of European policies, actions, and challenges to align its higher education and research, as well as lessons learned from this for similar initiatives elsewhere.

The study builds on a comprehensive overview and study of policy documents and scholarly literature to identify by decade the main policies and actions and the related challenges towards a European Higher Education and Research Area.

The findings make clear the key rationales, challenges, shifts and lessons to be learned from 50-year European policies for the alignment of higher education.

Its value lies in the historical overview and analysis of current initiatives, in particular the European Universities Initiative (EUI), to provide a historical and geographical context, which might give insight for similar initiatives elsewhere.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric study of housing prices according to the articles collected by the Web of Science (WOS).

This paper studies 4,125 research papers on housing prices in the core collection database of WOS. Using VOSviewer, this paper makes a bibliometric and visual analysis of the housing prices research from 1960 to 2020 and probes into the housing prices research from five aspects: time, international cooperation, institutions author cooperation and research focuses.

Keywords such as influencing factors of housing prices, analysis of supply and demand, policy and housing prices and regional cities appear frequently, which indicates the main direction of housing price research literature. Recent common keywords include regression analysis and house price forecast. Countries, like the USA started early in the study of housing prices, and the means and methods in the field of housing price research are mature, leading the forefront of housing price research. Compared with the USA and other Western developed countries, the housing price research in developing countries needs to use innovative research methods and put more effort on sustainability. Research shows that housing price is closely related to economy, and keyword cluster analysis shows that gross domestic product, interest rate, currency and other keywords related to economy are of high-frequency.

This paper only uses articles from one database (WOS), which does not represent all research papers published worldwide. Some studies have been published for a long time, and the reference value to the research focuses and future research might be limited. There are many kinds of journals included in the study with different publishing frequencies, time ranges and numbers of papers. These may have some influence on the research results.

The main theoretical contribution of this paper is to supplement the current academic research on housing prices. This paper reveals the key points of housing prices research and possible research problems that need attention. We can know from the future research direction and practice which can offer insights for future innovative direction.