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This paper is a study of the current trends and conditions of electronic resources for Chinese studies, based on a recent survey on the Internet of 29 Chinese libraries in North America and eight Chinese libraries in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The survey discussed current electronic resources for Chinese studies, with a union list of major Chinese language databases currently used in libraries in Asia and the US. Current views on the use and development of electronic resources for Chinese studies were summarised.

Triple helix theory stresses co‐evolution and interaction among governments, enterprises and universities, and is paid great attention by governments, universities and enterprises worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that Chinese government R&D investments play in the interaction between enterprises and universities.

Basing on provincial panel data of Chinese universities from 2004‐2010, the impact of government R&D investments on patent technology transfer activities of Chinese universities is studied by empirical analysis. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of both Chinese government R&D funding and national R&D programs on the number and the revenue of patent technology transfer contracts.

The study finds that the amount of government R&D funding and the number of 973 Programs in one region have significantly increased the number and the revenue of patent technology transfer contracts in that region. Moreover, the number of National S&T Pillar Programs, 863 Program and National Natural Science Foundation Program are also determinants of the number of patent technology transfer contracts.

This paper studies government's role in university‐enterprise patent technology transfer activities in a Chinese context. It reveals a government‐dominant position to promote patent technology transfer activities in Chinese triple helix model. It also provides a reference for decision makers in governments, industries and universities.

This paper traces the timeline and milestones of Chinese graduate students in agricultural economics and related fields at foreign universities, with an emphasis on North American universities, since the early 1980s, and assesses the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in North America and China.

Data from department and college websites, associations of agricultural economics, university libraries and databases of theses and dissertations and selected agricultural economic journals in English and Chinese are used to attain the above purposes through graphical and bibliometric analyses.

First, the numbers of Chinese doctoral recipients and tenure-track and tenured faculty in agricultural economics at North American universities have increased steadily and significantly. Second, Chinese scholars in North America have achieved tremendous success in agricultural economic research via high-quality publications, prestigious awards, editorship of top journals, leadership in professional organizations, etc. Third, more Chinese doctoral recipients overseas have increasingly returned to China and are playing important roles in China’s agricultural economic research, education and international collaboration. Fourth, the publications of overseas Chinese scholars in Chinese journals and those of their counterparts working in China on topics beyond China are relatively limited and more collaboration may enhance the global impacts of Chinese agricultural economists.

This research is limited by data availability and quality and the data problems are discussed in the paper.

This is likely the first study to assess the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in China and abroad.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of cultural differences on the design and management of two franchise programs and one joint degree program run by a Chinese university in partnership with a British university and a French university. The cross-cultural challenges and the differences in the strategies taken by the managers in both types of program to deal with such challenges are analyzed. The frameworks for such strategies are also proposed.

A case study approach was used for the analysis. Participatory observation and interview were adopted to collect information in combination with the written reports on the programs. The interviewees included managers, faculty members, and students. Thematic analysis was conducted to find out the common themes from the coded data.

For franchise programs, the British university takes a “collaborating” strategy focusing on globalization, which is combined with the “compromising” strategy of the Chinese partner university focusing on localization. Both parties keep their different styles of management and combine them into one new management mode. By contrast, in the joint degree program, the French management mode can be described as a “collaborating” strategy toward the management of the Chinese students and curriculum, while the Chinese managers are seeking to progressively “accommodate” the needs of the French students.

Few studies in the current literature are targeted at the cultural influences on the design and management of transnational higher education (TNHE) programs as well as the proper management strategies to deal with such cultural differences. The result of this study will provide useful advice for researchers and practitioners in cross-cultural management of TNHE programs.

The purpose of this paper is to communicate the positive and challenging aspects of a Master of Education program, as perceived by Chinese students at an Atlantic Canadian university.

Assuming a qualitative methodology, 21 Mainland Chinese students participated in individual, paired, and focus group semi-structured interviews. Interviews were member checked. Data were analyzed through content analysis. The findings are discussed using Deardorff’s (2006, 2009) concept of intercultural competence.

Students perceived the best features of their educational experience to be personable instructors, their enhanced English skills, and practical course-based experiences embedded in the program. The main challenges were social isolation, English language requirements and related assignments, and theoretical expectations of the program.

This study contains a somewhat small qualitative small sample size (i.e. 21 participants), therein, disabling any generalization of results. In other words, the data findings are unique and non-generalizable beyond the particular research case. However, transferability, which refers to the extent in which the results of an original study can be applied to similar people, contexts, or settings (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), may be applied to the findings if the reader deems the context of this study in alignment with his/her situation.

Approximately, 82 percent of Canadian universities rate internationalization as a top priority, supporting the need for research in this area. An implication of the study is that internationalization of higher education must be more than just the recruitment of international students. Universities have direct and fiduciaries responsibilities to support the academic needs, personal needs of their international students, as well as the intercultural competence of all students, instructors and staff.

There is a plethora of research documenting experiences of international students, in general, but such research is not directly transferrable to the Chinese student. The issues and problems encountered by Chinese international students are unique and should be addressed independently from international students. Moreover, a lot of the research that focuses on Chinese students enrolled in North American universities, predominantly, is conducted within the USA, and such research tends to spotlight the challenges only. In turn, the authors’ research addresses a specialized focus of the international Chinese student in Canada.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the current status of the Chinese research and development (R&D) system in a global environment, compared to those of other nations.

Extracting meaningful information from organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) (research intensity), Thomson Reuters (research output), UNESCO and cross-border education research team (C-BERT) (mobility) databases and analysing de facto international standards such as university rankings, the Chinese system is compared to those of other scientific powers (the world top expenders in R&D such as the USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and some European nations), both using absolute production values and those relative to the productivity of the R&D workforce, so a general view of such a system is offered to complement previous analyses.

A rather utilitarian approach to R&D policy, linked to economic growth, with a strong role of a Government-backed industry and based on applied R&D rather than on basic science, is found. The emergence of China as a scientific power relies heavily on a small number of institutions and efficiency becomes the priority, as confirmed by the growing presence of Chinese universities in university rankings – which is linked to some internationalisation efforts – and by the quantitative analysis of science and technology macro-indicators. Nevertheless, those results still remain modest when the overall size of the Chinese R&D system is considered.

A general view of the Chinese system is offered in this study by combining both the analysis of the inputs of the Chinese R&D (in a internationally comparable way) system and outputs (up to international standards).

In the wake of the ongoing financial crisis, US managerialism has been denounced as a professional caste that has slowly served to erode the competitiveness of the US economy. In light of this, there is an increasing search for possible alternatives to US managerialism, with some authorities putting forward that one enviable alternative is “Confucian management”, which they claim is a means of organising in Chinese institutions that gets things done by pulling on the rich heritage of Ancient Chinese philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate “Confucian management”.

This paper questions the common view of “Confucian management” through an ethnography of Baiyun University (a pseudonym) in South China, where the author worked as a “foreign” English lecturer for one academic year, and in order to do this the author draws on participant-observation and semi-structured interviews. Ethnography has long been associated with colonialism and has more recently been connected with post-colonialism, so in an attempt to decolonise the methodology, the author analyses the generated research data through a Chinese sensitive cultural framework.

This paper argues that “Confucian management” offers a confused and epistemologically questionable view on Chinese management. It points to some of the limitations of management and organisation studies brought about by claims being made without sufficient empirical evidence.

The focus is on “Confucian management” at Baiyun University so findings are specific to this empirical research site. It is also acknowledged that universities have a divergent form of management to other institutions. The paper’s intent is ideographic rather than nomothetic; therefore, no claims to generalisation are made.

The paper makes three substantive contributions. First, the empirical contribution is an ethnographic description of “Confucian management” at Baiyun University. Second, the methodological contribution attempts to decolonise methodology by analysing the generated research data through a Chinese sensitive cultural framework. Third, the epistemological contribution queries to what extent “Confucian management” as an idea that is enunciated from the Global North is able to effectively speak about a practice that is supposedly performed in the Global South.

The purpose of this paper is to glean a comprehensive picture of the internal governance structure in Chinese universities based on data from 40 university administrators from 33 Chinese institutions.

The 40 administrators were convenience sampled while they were taking a three-month higher education leadership development program in a large public university in Canada. Permission was obtained to use the comparative discussions at different reflective research sessions as data to inform this study. The data were also progressively collected through informal interviews throughout the three months.

The study finds that the current governance model practiced in Chinese universities can be called “administrator governance,” with all members on the two major governing bodies being senior administrators appointed by and accountable for the governments. To build a “modern university system” aspired in China, the Chinese university administrators perceived a need to strengthen institutional autonomy and collegial governance with participation of the faculty and students.

As much of the literature has focused on the government–university relationship in China, this study aims to glean a comprehensive picture of the internal governance structure in Chinese universities.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how technology‐based university research drives innovation in Europe and China.

This paper draws on extensive theoretical research and literature reviews, and presents a framework based on theories on networking, knowledge creation and innovation. It then introduces three European cases to illustrate practical applications of the framework, and also links the findings to three Chinese cases to make comparative observations as well as recommendations related to Triple Helix concepts and their implications in the China context. It addresses the issue of how learning from universities can enhance company flexibility and performance in innovation, and outlines three different models of collaboration.

The framework and empirical research suggests that weak ties are useful for inspiration in exploration, but that strong industry‐university (I‐U) ties are required to support exploitation. This finding applies both to Europe and China in the industries covered.

This paper provides a new theoretical rationale for I‐U learning alliances as a natural way out from the managerial problem of trying to perform both exploration and exploitation within the same company boundaries. Through the theoretical framework, the academic science domain becomes a logical partner to handle the full phase of exploration and support the process of exploitation. The presented European cases of Bang & Olufsen, Combibloc and Porsche offer new insights into how to perform this act in practice, while the three China‐related cases allow us to cross analyse empirical findings and draw initial conclusions with policy implications for China.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the beliefs of undergraduate business students studying in Canada and partners in China about the quality of the program; what they consider effective signals of quality; and their willingness to pay to improve the quality.

A survey was designed and distributed to 481 students in the transnational program during the 2009 and 2011 academic years. Statistical tests were conducted to examine mean differences in the perception of quality, different signals of quality and willingness to pay to improve quality.

The findings of the study indicate that Canadian University and Chinese partner students, mostly in their final years of study, have similar beliefs about the quality of the program. They consider the program as good quality but not top rated. Chinese partners' students in their earlier years of study have a lower perception of quality but this gets better as they progress through the program. Students perceive high quality reputation and professional accreditation as equally important in terms of signalling quality. Finally, many students are willing to pay more to improve the quality of the program.

Some limitations of the study include convenience sample selection and size, translation of survey, the framing of the survey questions and controlling for factors such as grade point average, gender and other factors.

The paper provides important information to monitor quality and to place a value on pursuing accreditation and tuition fee increases.

Students' perception of quality has remained under‐examined in the literature. The research establishes a framework which can lead to future explorations.