Transcript Slide 1

Exploring the integration of Chinese
merged Higher Education Institutions in
Management and Leadership dimension
DONG LI
Researcher
Higher Education Group
Department of Management Studies
Tampere University, Finland
[email protected]
Mergers in Chinese HEIs
• In the 1990s, the Chinese government began a
series of efforts to restructure the national higher
education system. The merger was the most
important tool in this process, in which nearly all
of the key universities have been involved. By
2005, there had been more than 420 cases of
merger, which had involved more than 1,000
higher education institutions. Even though the
merger of higher education institutions is not a
new phenomenon in the world, there is no doubt
that such a large scale of mergers as can be
observed in China, is a unique phenomenon.
Mergers HEIs in 19902005(MOE,2005)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 0
1
2
3
4
5
Purpose of this study
How does the merger influence the
management and leadership?
And How do the management and
leadership re-influence the integration of
the merger?
Merger
Management
Integration
Leadership
Research Method
• In this study, qualitative research will be
employed.
• Case study will be main method; literature
review
Data collection--• Interview ( the key persons choice; the good
questions; conducted by thematic interview)
• Documents studies, observational studies and
personal working experience will also be
employed in the data collection of this study.
Two Definitions
Merger: “Five Unifications” –Ji Baocheng (Cai,2002:P21)
1.
One “Banzi” (leaders group),
2.
One “Jiguo” (organization),
3.
One “Zhidu” (administration system),
4.
One “Caiwu” (financial administration)
5.
and One “Fazhang Guihua” (strategic planning)
--- Political; Physic; Organization --Integration:
The new university has unitary organizational structure and
system; the involving people can change their pre-identity to the
new organization, accepting and sharing the value of the merger
to accomplish the merger strategy and other relevant
organizational goals.
--- Version; Value; belief; identity ---
Case description
Hebei Normal University (HNU,1996)
merged from
• Hebei Normal University (HNUo,1902)
• Hebei Normal institute (HNI, 1900)
• Hebei Education College (HEC,1976)
• Hebei Professional Technology Normal
College (HPTNC,1987)
Motivation, Process and Outcomes
Motives of Government
“The Outline for Educational Reform and Development in China” (1993)
“211 Project” (1998)
• Readjusting the structure of old Chinese Higher Education system.
• Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Chinese higher education
• Improving the quality of higher education to enable the merged universities to train
students who have a mix of skills to adapt the requirements of the rapidly changing
society.
• Breeding some First-class world universities.
Motives of HEIs
International perspective: National Policy; Finance; Quality; Scale; Breadth; Distribution;
Reputation; Competition, etc. (Estman & Lang, 2001;Volkwein 1989;Goedegebuure,
1992)
In China, the main reason is political reason
As the president of HNU, Professor Wang, mentioned:
“Before the new HNU was established, the four original institutions operation was well.
The lack of money was a problem for every institution, but the reason for our merger
was mainly because of the pressure from government. Besides this, to improve our
reputation and accelerate the development of our institution was another reasons”
Merger Process of HNU
1) The pre-merger phase (1996)
April,1996 Hebei Province government made decision
about the merger of HNU, then, appointed the new
leaders for the new University.
2) Transition (implementation) phase (1996-1998-2000)
1996-1998, merged all administrative departments
1998-2000, merged all faculties, units, and schools.
3) The post-merger (integration) phase (2000-present)
Outcomes
academic and administrative
(Scale, breadth, reputation; Research, teaching and
learning, etc. )
•
13 top (institution) level leaders,
•
more than 260middle level leaders;
•
the total academic and administrative staffs were
more than 4300;
•
the full-time students were more than 30,000;
•
the part-time students in different level were more
than 100,000.
•
Four campuses
In this study, focus on the management and leadership
Governance Structure
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Institutional (top) level President (Academic)
Secretary (CCP)
---Vice-President, Research
---Vice Secretary, Cadre
--- Vice-President, Education
--- Vice Secretary, propagandas
--- Vice-President, Personnel
--- Vice Secretary, labour union &
--- Vice-President, Finance
audit
--- Vice-President, Logistic service
--- Vice Secretary, Staff Union
--- Vice-President, Campus construction
--- Vice-President, Affair of students
(Management and Admission)
…
Middle level (1) Administrative units --- Director, Branch Secretary of CCP, Vice Directors,
Vice-Branch Secretary of CCP
(2) Academic units (Faculties and Research institutes) [1]
(3) Units of CCP
(4) Affiliated enterprises --- Director or Manager, Branch Secretary of CCP,
Vice Directors or Managers, Vice-Branch Secretary of CCP
[1] There are academic leaders (dean and vice-dean) and leaders of CCP (secretary and vice-secretary) in the
faculty or institutes.
Finding and Discussion
In China, we found four factors, which are so-called “three Zi and one Qing”.
The “three Zi” include:
“Paizi” (the name of the merged university),
“Weizi” (Positions of leadership, including the top level and the middle level)
“Piaozi” (Money);
“One Qing” is historical value, culture and emotions that have formed in the
hearts of staff (Shi, 2003).
The Chinese vision of three “Zi” and one “Qing” has very strong link with
traditional political system and management culture. There are two
distinction thinking have been influencing Chinese people hundreds of years.
The one is Quanli Chongbai (the power of worship); another one is Renji
Guanxi (relationship network). The findings form the preliminary data
collection, on the one hand, the merger affects the leadership and
management of HNU, one the other hand, the leadership and management
have been re-influencing the integration of the merged HNU.
The merger influences
management an leadership
1) Power balance
Government: Making Decision (Top-down); appoint new leaders
Institution: Human recourse; Financial issues, etc.
2) The struggle of power (different institutions; different interest
groups)
3) Governmentalization (use of power, manner of management)
How to understand?
The political system and traditional culture are
different between China and Western countries
Wallin (2006) discusses the different ways of managerial thinking
comparing the Eastern and the Western approaches based on his
long experience from doing business with China. His main
conclusions in this area are as follows:
•
•
The Western focus is on determining goals and arranging for task
completion. The Eastern focus includes those same elements, but a
significantly larger amount of energy is spent on determining how the goals
and tasks fit into the broader scheme of the players involved. For example,
who should be making which decisions, who should be the experts, who
should set the goals, etc.
The role of the individual is also different. Westerners admire rugged
individualism. In a Darwinistic sense this results in highly skilled and
experienced leaders emerging among those who are successful after
having gone off on their own. In contrast, the Easterners tend to gravitate
more strongly to their social networks, and place more emphasis on the
credibility and social capital of those they would choose to work with instead
of just evaluating pure skill and experience criteria. (Wallin, 2006)
Influencing the integration
“Five Unifications” – the centralization of the
administrative power.
2. The conflict of interest among different groups affects the
psychology of leaders and staff
3. The enlarged scale does not always produce an
improvement of efficiency.
4. The lack of the strategic planning
---The merger is a long-term and complex process
1.
Conclusion
This study beads on the literature review, gives the definitions of the merger and integration in Chinese
context. According to these definition to examines and explores the merger have been influencing
the nature of the management and leadership, which involved the expectation of the power
balance, but, which is not easy to realize; power struggle; as well as manner of the power use
lead to governmentalization. These factors have been influencing the efficiency and effectiveness
of the management and leadership. At the same time, the special situation of the management
and leadership in merged university that have been influencing the real integration on big version,
value and sharing indentify. Thus, these HEIs’ integration is a long-term and complex process.
Further thinking and study
•
Who can as the leader of the merged HEIs? What are the skills for the leaders? Perhaps, they
should be:
Academic expert
Education expert
Administrative & management expert
Statesman
Sales expert
Strategist
and,……
What’s kind of leadership model for the merged HEIs can adapt the merger circumstance?
Thank you
Dong Li
Higher Education Group
Department of Management Studies
Tampere University, Finland
[email protected]