Search results

Leadership in higher education has become of increasing importance as the size of the enterprise has grown, and this has naturally led to a growing research interest in the topic. Using systematic review methods, this chapter interrogates and synthesises the research literature on leadership in higher education in terms of its meanings, application and practice, and the issues and critiques raised. It concludes that research into leadership in higher education has been both extensive and global in nature, identifying a variety of understandings, practices and approaches adopted, and the continuing dominance of white men in senior leadership positions. There is clearly scope for more research on this topic, which could both emphasise different issues and give greater recognition to the particular nature of higher education and higher education institutions.

This chapter evaluates the readiness of the higher education system to contribute to the competitiveness of African countries in the knowledge economy. Using institutions of higher learning in Kenya and Uganda as case studies, the study demonstrates that the higher education system in Africa is ill-equipped to fulfill the role of knowledge production for the advancement of African economies. The chapter proposed promising ways through which higher education in the region can play a more fulfilling role to the global knowledge economy through the formation of relevant skills for the growth of African economies. In an era where knowledge assets are accorded more importance than capital and labor assets, and where the economy relies on knowledge as the key engine of economic growth, this chapter argues that higher education institutions in Africa can assist in tackling the continent’s challenges through research in knowledge creation, dissemination, and utilization for improved productivity. These institutions need to engage in design-driven innovation in the emerging knowledge economy. To enhance their contributions toward human capital development and knowledge-intensive economies in the region, it is imperative to employ public-private initiatives to bridge and address various challenges and gaps facing universities and research institutions in Africa.

Informed by multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, higher education scholars have developed a robust and diverse literature in many countries. Yet, some important (organizational) sociological perspectives, both more established and more recent, are insufficiently linked. In particular, we identify two theoretical strands – institutional and relational – that, when joined, help to explain contemporary developments in global higher education and yield new organizational insights. We review relevant literature from each perspective, both in their general formulations and with specific reference to contemporary higher education research. Within the broad institutional strand, we highlight strategic action fields, organizational actorhood, and associational memberships. Within the relational strand, we focus on ties and relationships that are especially crucial as science has entered an age of (inter)national research collaboration. Across these theories, we discuss linkages between concepts, objects, and levels of analysis. We explore the methodological approach of social network analysis as it offers great potential to connect these strands and, thus, to advance contemporary higher education research in a collaborative era.

Observation is a neglected data collection method in higher education research. Yet observation holds out the promise of seeing what people actually do, rather than what they say they do (in interviews or surveys) or write down that they do (in documents). It may also be pursued quantitatively and/or qualitatively, using a highly structured data collection instrument or in an open-ended and flexible fashion, carried out live or using recorded material. This chapter explores the limited existing literature on the use of observation in higher education research, speculates on the reasons for its lack of use, and argues for its greater usage in the future.

Due to the diversity of academics engaging with research into higher education, there is no single methodological approach or method that would embody higher education research. In this chapter, we put forward the case that this is a good thing and argue that higher education research can benefit from fusing existing methodological and theoretical paradigms with more creative, playful and artistic approaches, more commonly associated with sociological or anthropological research and performance-based disciplines. In order to frame this attitude of creativity, playfulness and openness, we start by providing a brief delineation of the research field and methods of higher education research. In this context we introduce the Deleuzoguattarian concept of rhizomes and assemblages to provide the grounding for what we mean by creativity and playfulness, which leads to our proposal of a renewed approach to research into higher education. We draw upon our own work on embodied academic identity and trainee teachers’ perceptions of their placement experiences in order to critically explore the benefits and potential pitfalls of incorporating this creativity and playfulness into higher education research.

As a sector, higher education is at the low end of innovation rankings. The challenges we face – demographic, technological, political, and pedagogical – will require sustained innovation at a strategic level. Recent research with mature companies has identified exemplars in strategic innovation (e.g., O’Connor, Corbett, & Peters, 2018). This work explores whether – and how – higher education institutions might adapt insights from the corporate sector for strategic innovation in teaching and learning.

The introductory section provides an overview of the nature of strategic innovation (and why it is hard to sustain), strategic issues facing higher education, and the status and challenges of sustaining strategic innovation for teaching. The next two sections describe insights from research with corporate exemplars of sustaining strategic innovation. Each section uses a scenario from higher education as a proof-of-concept test to explore the application of the corporate sector insights for strategic innovation in higher education teaching and learning.

The final section of the chapter discusses the planned next steps to prototype and test adaptation of these corporate sector insights with institutional innovation leaders in higher education, as well as additional potential sources of insights (from other research in the corporate sector and from strategic innovation in the public sector).

This chapter provides an overview of the findings and chapters of a thematic volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society (IPES) series. It describes the common dataset and methods used by an international research team.

The chapter synthesizes the results of a series of country-level case studies and cross-national and regional comparisons on the growth of scientific research from 1900 until 2011. Additionally, the chapter provides a quantitative analysis of global trends in scientific, peer-reviewed publishing over the same period.

The introduction identifies common themes that emerged across the case studies examined in-depth during the multi-year research project Science Productivity, Higher Education, Research and Development and the Knowledge Society (SPHERE). First, universities have long been and are increasingly the primary organizations in science production around the globe. Second, the chapters describe in-country and cross-country patterns of competition and collaboration in scientific publications. Third, the chapters describe the national policy environments and institutionalized organizational forms that foster scientific research.

The introduction reviews selected findings and limitations of previous bibliometric studies and explains that the chapters in the volume address these limitations by applying neo-institutional theoretical frameworks to analyze bibliometric data over an extensive period.

This chapter discusses the main challenges in higher education comparative research, focusing on cross-national forms of comparison and presenting examples from European research. The first part stresses the importance of constructing concepts which can travel across countries. This part identifies the different vertical levels of comparison involved in higher education cross-national research, discussing how the need for exploring general patterns in higher education (e.g. globalisation and Europeanisation) is confronted with the importance of taking into account the diversity within the particular cases (e.g. institutional and individual experiences). The second part focuses on the equivalence of meaning in large-N (in particular, the Eurostudent and REFLEX datasets) and small-N studies, identifying the respective limits of the two forms of comparison. The chapter contends that comparative research in higher education could benefit from more collaboration between small-N qualitative comparativists and experts of large-N studies used in European policy-making.

Shadowing is a form of non-participant observation that entails following and observing research participants as they go about their everyday business. It offers a possibility to gain in-depth insights into individuals’ actions, roles, and personalities, as well as their social relations and environments. However, shadowing remains – as do other observational and ethnographic methods – largely unfamiliar within the field of higher education research. As a result, a methodological – and, consequently, knowledge – gap has formed: while document, policy, survey, and interview analyses offer insights into how things should be done or are said to be done, few studies offer an understanding of how things are actually done. Based on my experience of shadowing heads of departments at an English university, I discuss the strengths of the method and warn about the issues one has to carefully navigate when conducting shadowing, with a particular focus on carrying out such research in higher education environments. The chapter advocates for a wider use of shadowing among higher education researchers, concluding that our understanding of higher education dynamics can benefit most from this method when it is combined with other data collection techniques.

Taiwan serves as a case study to investigate the association between the expansion and reform of higher education and the growth of science production. More specifically, what driving forces facilitated the growth of science production in different types of Taiwanese universities and other sectors, from 1980 to 2011.

The contribution charts differential contributions to overall production. Taiwanese data from Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) is analyzed to show the expansion of the higher education system and its relationship to the production of science. The author uses sociological organization theories to facilitate our understanding of how and why the landscape of science production changed.

Results show that the growth of science production is associated with processes of isomorphism and competition within the higher education system. Findings also suggest that universities quickly seized upon external opportunities and turned themselves into what is known as the “knowledge conglomerate.” Unique organizational features bolster universities’ position as the driving force behind advancing national innovation.

This study extends previous research by examining multiple sectors of higher education, using longitudinal and recent data, and highlighting themes that have been ignored or overlooked, such as competition and collaboration among universities and industry partners.