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This paper discusses the effectiveness of a consortium-based student mobility programme by investigating the impact of the Asian International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Programme. AIMS is a regional multilateral large-scale student mobility programme based on a consortium of 10 member countries and 87 member universities with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development (SEAMEO RIHED) as a facilitator. Over 6,000 students have participated in a semester-long intra-regional student exchange under AIMS since 2010.

The study employed questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews to investigate the impact of AIMS and its advantages as a consortium-based student mobility programme.

It was found that AIMS significantly impacted member universities by accelerating their internationalisation processes through increasing the number of inbound and outbound students and courses offered in English and so on. AIMS has promoted harmonisation among the members by developing common procedures and guidelines, providing platforms for mutual sharing of experiences and good practices and capacity building of international relations offices. AIMS has also had a significant impact on students by enhancing their regional identity and knowledge about the region of Asia, contributing to their development as future regional and global citizens. As advantages of AIMS, member universities efficiently built a foundation for international collaboration with common procedures and guidelines and shared their experiences through such venues as Annual Review Meetings. Students also feel supported by having clear guidance and find programmes prepared by host universities and SEAMEO RIHED useful.

This study is unique in that it empirically studies the impact of one of Asia’s largest student mobility programmes for the first time by analysing large-scale qualitative and quantitative data.

Self-initiated international placements by students have been largely ignored in the literature on outward mobility in higher education. The support given to self-initiated international placement students, if any, has received even less attention. This study aims to address this lacuna.

Drawing on insights from global mobility literature, we conducted a survey of UK university students who engaged in self-initiated international placements to various countries such as France, China, Brazil and Ghana. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis.

Findings reveal that these “voluntary” placements can improve language fluency, increase self-confidence, renew stress management abilities and enhance cross-cultural competencies and intercultural sensitivity. The study problematises the lack of support given to these students particularly in terms of career development.

Our paper is one of the first to bring this under-studied population to the attention of career guidance scholars. We propose that scholarly attention should be directed toward the agency of self-initiated international placement students and that targeted career guidance must be provided through more inclusive career services.

This paper explores the issue of developing and enhancing intra-ASEAN international student mobility given the context of ASEAN integration, regionalization of ASEAN higher education and the various intra‐ASEAN student mobility schemes currently implemented.

It explores higher education policies, available higher education and international student mobility data, as well as the various intra‐ASEAN (and relevant) student mobility schemes to present the current status of intra‐ASEAN student mobility, challenges and opportunities to further enhance student mobility within the ASEAN region.

Aside from showing that intra‐ASEAN student mobility is significantly low compared to outbound student mobility from ASEAN countries, the paper also highlights the relationship between a country’s income status with choice of intra‐ASEAN or extraASEAN student mobility. Finally, it recommends developing a comprehensive intra‐ASEAN mobility scheme taking the merits of the various intra‐ASEAN mobility schemes currently implemented and guided by developments in the European ERASMUS mobility programs.

This is probably the first (in fact, it is an exploratory) paper that address the issue of intra‐ASEAN international student mobility, which aims to explore relevant issues to address the development of a comprehensive ASEAN mobility scheme.

The harmonisation of university degrees at the European level leads us to believe that training needs are addressed in the same way in different countries. However, the inevitable adaptation to the changing environment faced by companies requires a continuous adjustment between training and future needs, according to the sector. The aim of this paper is to compare two leading and culturally similar countries in the tourism sector in order to determine whether training is being provided homogeneously in tourism higher education and whether more specific training is desired to meet the needs of the sector in each country.

This study is part of the European Next Tourism Generation (NTG) Project, the first European partnership to foster a collaborative and productive relationship between the education system and the tourism industry. A mixed research study was conducted with the purpose of development, i.e. with the intention that the results of one method (qualitative) are used to assist the development of the other method (quantitative) and an exploratory sequential design. Both qualitative (29 interviews) and quantitative (509 tourism organisations) methods are used.

For a sector that has undergone significant changes in recent years, the results show the differences between countries around the current level of soft skills of employees, the level they will need to develop in the future and the gaps that those responsible for training future employees in the sector need to focus on for the 2030 horizon.

Several recommendations have emerged from this paper: to complement higher education, to achieve a better link between the business world and future workers; to provide much more incentives for international student mobility, which will allow students to develop intercultural soft skills before they enter the world of work, and to propose the creation of a social network to share, communicate and learn about resources specific to the tourism industry.

Since the Bologna Plan, higher education institutions have been tasked with preparing students for the world of work and developing the employability of graduates. The link between the professional world (companies) and the educational world (training centres) is a crucial factor in determining students' future skills and needs. When educational programmes respond to the needs of industry, the university can gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, some authors suggest the need for coordination and regular communication between business and training centres, thus improving the competitiveness of companies and reducing the gap that currently exists. In this paper, comparing two culturally similar countries with a recognised trajectory in the tourism sector, we will try to observe this gap and propose interesting options for the future of the sector.

The following article Chinese students' migration projects to the global south. Little work has sought to deepen the understanding of Chinese students' mobility to developing countries. This is key to determining a more complete profile of Chinese students and whether they fit into the categories of foreign students described by mainstream literature.

In order to understand the respective experiences and points of view of foreign students in on the process of choosing the country of study, we proceeded to identify different students of Chinese origin who have made their trip to Chile during the last decade. In addition, documents on China's international student mobility policy were reviewed, mainly focusing on documents dealing with Chinese students going abroad.

Chinese students are increasingly looking to travel to countries in the Global South as an opportunity to differentiate themselves. Chile emerges as an attractive destination as it is seen as a stable country in Latin America. It is a place where China has several strategic interests that may allow future professional development.

This article focuses on this aspect, mainly on how Chinese students perceive Chile as a place to pursue higher education. There is strong evidence of Chinese student flows to developed countries, but there are still insufficient studies on South-South mobility.

This paper aims to explore the Spanish Self-Initiated Expats’ (SIEs) motivations and factors involved in the choice of the host destination.

Through an exploratory and qualitative study, drawing upon SIE literature on motivations and careers, 22 Spanish SIEs were interviewed in a semi-structured way.

Most SIEs clearly detailed the line of reasoning behind the host destination choice (specific destination); a second group considered a limited number of potential countries to relocate to (alternative destinations), and the smallest one did not choose a specific location. Career motivations were the most mentioned ones and different degrees of career planning were found: those with a very defined career planning process relied upon one potential destination, while those with a less defined one considered several alternative host destinations. The European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students experience was one of the most mentioned factors influencing the choice of the host destination, which may be common to other European Union (EU) nationals. As to the limiting ones, the visa requirements outside the EU were identified. Other factors were particular to Spain, such as the perceived need for English proficiency for a successful global career and the degrees of career planning.

These findings may assist Talent Management Managers to align organizational strategies with SIEs motivations. They may also help future Spanish and European SIEs in their individual career management process.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the expatriation motivations and factors influencing the destination location of Spanish SIEs, adding to the SIE and global career literature.

The purpose of this study is to explore the degree of variance in work value preferences espoused by university students based on whether the students are in possession of work experience and experience abroad. Vocational identity development (VID) was used as a theoretical lens to explore the extent to which being in possession of experience in these two areas shapes vocational identity.

A questionnaire (n = 1,188) was employed to measure the relative salience for 8 latent work values constructs and 25 individual-level work values. Respondents were classified into two groups based on work experience and abroad experience, and the differences in work value preferences between these groups were explored.

The authors' comparison of sample groups revealed that respondents without experience abroad attached significantly greater importance to specific work values (e.g. stability, extrinsic motivation and leisure) than those with sojourner experience. The relative salience of specific work values (e.g. altruistic and extrinsic motivation) was found to be significantly greater for respondents without work experience than those with such experience, however, not to the extent of abroad experience. VID as a theoretical framework was found to be valuable in conceptualising how work value preferences appear to be the outcome of a process of co-construction between an individual and his environment.

The reasons as to how and why changes in work value salience occur cannot be conclusively established due to the exploratory nature and conceptual design of the present study.

The findings suggest work and abroad experience play a pivotal role in shaping respondents' work values and, more generally, the VID. This reinforces the need for cooperation between higher education and industry to provide experiential learning opportunities and career guidance to enhance graduate employability and contribute to long-term engagement of talent in tight labour markets.

The value of these findings is that the findings contribute to greater conceptual understanding of the relationship between work experience, abroad experience and work value preferences. This is particularly relevant to academic staff and curriculum developers at a tertiary level in preparing and guiding university students in their interactions with professional practice.

Higher education performance is boosted through cross-border cooperation and increased transnational mobility of students. In addition, exchange students have better employability skills after staying abroad compared to the students' peers. A number of studies have investigated factors that determine whether a student studies abroad. In this study, the authors focused on the role of personality trait openness to experience and cultural intelligence (CI) in explaining Croatian students' experience with and/or intention to travel abroad for studying purposes.

The authors analyzed results from 482 students (M = 22.61, standard deviation (SD) = 2.24, 66% female), of whom 35% reported that they studied abroad or intended to study abroad. They filled in The Cultural Intelligence Scale and openness facets items from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP-300) questionnaire.

The authors conducted a hierarchical binary logistic regression analysis and found that students who were younger, had higher adventurousness and higher motivational CI were more likely to study abroad. Results of the mediation analysis showed that the association between openness to experience facet adventurousness and intention to study abroad was partially mediated by the motivational aspect of CI.

This study contributes to the better understanding of complex interrelations between personality traits and CI in the context of higher education internationalization processes. This study offers unique insight into the mediating role CI has in the association between personality and mobility behavior.

This paper draws on two studies from a wider research program exploring the long-term graduate outcomes of Australia’s international development scholarships, the Australia Awards. The paper’s focus is on exploring how soft power can be identified through international scholarships and outlines conditions for success in achieving such outcomes.

This article discusses a mixed-methods sequential design that uses a quantitative online survey to identify themes to explore in a case study using a quantitative social networks approach.

The research identified two outcomes linked to the soft power of international scholarships, these are: (1) The value of existing connections – exposure and opportunity for scholarship recipients to build professional networks while in-country, influences the likelihood of alumni actioning these positive experiences by developing partnerships with host-country organisations after returning home; and (2) The value of alumni interconnectivity – the critical mass of peer-to-peer alumni relationships is a soft power asset that donors can harness to influence their international development and diplomacy objectives. Together, these findings also provide evidence that soft power attraction engendered in international scholarship participants can have longevity.

This article builds on early literature examining the effectiveness of international scholarships for developing countries in achieving soft power for scholarship donors. It provides a new view of these outcomes by looking at alumni networks individually and as a critical mass, to demonstrate how these contribute to achieving the diplomacy objectives of this type of state-sponsored student mobility program.

Through a case study of a recently established but rapidly growing research-intensive university in China, this study explores how transnational joint doctoral programs are strategically instrumentalized to overcome policy restrictions on postgraduate degree accreditation. It utilizes the cumulative (dis)advantage theory as the analytical lens. This study investigates the innovative, bottom-up initiation of transnational higher education tailored to the development goals of the university and this region, thus providing an alternative perspective for the dominant top-down discourse on transnational higher education research in China.

This study employs a qualitative case study design that incorporates semi-structured interviews and document analysis to investigate the examined university’s joint doctoral programs.

The study examines how, through its transnational joint doctoral programs, the case university actively accumulated the advantages of recruiting excellent research students, cultivating the public’s confidence and deepening international collaboration. These advantages created a virtuous circle, which further reinforced each other and accelerated the university’s development. The disadvantages include power disparities between the case university and its partners, students’ study discontinuity because of temporal and spatial division and the challenges of co-supervision. Accordingly, the university implemented counterstrategies such as adopting a differentiated stance with varying partners, offering flexible administrative and management supports and aligning differently with various supervisors’ collaboration styles.

This study presents innovative institutional strategies in the Greater Bay Area of China to pursue rapid development and internationalization through transnational higher education programs. It also strives to illuminate the significant role of transnational higher education in facilitating experimental governance with Chinese characteristics.