published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Since the 1980s, decision-making and managerial power has gradually been handed over to higher education institutions in China. This has helped to reduce the government’s financial burden and improve the administrative efficiency of universities. A particular reform involves the establishment of autonomous experimental units within 36 universities. These decentralized units are more highly dependent on market forces than other parts of the university. This thesis examines the development of one such academic unit within one of China’s major universities. The particular academic unit, heretofore referred to as a “school” is studied through a detailed examination of its teaching, research and administration. It is granted a high degree of autonomy to manage itself and its finance. Therefore, it is encouraged to be innovative in its organizational structure and working procedures. This helps drive it to cooperate with industry and adopt a market mechanism in management. The research demonstrates the changing relationships of this school with its parent university, with governments at different levels, and with industry and the wider society. The results indicate that a major shift is taking place in Chinese higher education, as China responds with increased marketization and decentralization. Borrowing theories developed by Clark and Oliver in the fields of higher education and organizational theory, this thesis not only provides a deeper understating of the triangular relationship among universities, state authority and the market, but also refines these theories to suit the Chinese context. This investigation reveals that thus a particular academic unit, unlike most university units in China, must respond to external pressures and expectations in order to survive in a new context of decentralization and commodification. The thesis identifies and analyzes the critical factors affecting the school’s development and its coping strategies within an altered environment of operation. Employing a qualitative research methodology, this work views the selected unit of a major Chinese university as an open organizational system, and analyzes the external and internal forces that influence the school’s development. The data collection approach is comprised of semi-structured and unstructured interviews to elicit views and perceptions from the respondents regarding the decision-making, policy implementation and the development of the unit. A focus group interview method is used to question current undergraduate and postgraduate students about perceptions and attitudes towards the development of the unit. Documents are used to obtain background information and to support and triangulate the data collected from individual and group interviews. Although the school failed to make radical changes to the existing university structure and institutions, it has demonstrated the ability to sustain itself, innovate, and gain legitimacy through continuing negotiation and compromise with university authority, government and market. Based on the results of this research, I would argue that if units similar to this one within Chinese universities are granted more administrative autonomy and orient themselves to market forces, Chinese universities will be able to integrate themselves into the increasingly marketized economy and contribute to national development without sacrificing the core academic missions of teaching, research and service. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

This is a case study of the administration and organization of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), a prominent Chinese university operating under the State Education Commission of China. The prime objective of the research was to understand how a modern Chinese university is governed at the cultural level---what are the implicit governing assumptions of the upper level administrators? An objective of the completed study is to promote international understanding of Chinese higher education in light of China's 1985 education reform. / Data was gathered during eight months of fieldwork conducted in the 1995 academic year. More than one hundred interviews were conducted. Documents in the University Archives were searched. My prior experience was drawn upon, as I had studied and worked at HUST for eleven years. / After a brief description of the history and the campus of the university, the study includes selected major aspects of the administration of HUST including: student affairs, quality control in teaching, the academic echelon (a form of research team), academic personnel, social services, finance, and the Chinese Communist Party role in management. / The concluding chapter presents an ideal-type framework to describe HUST's administration. It has three concepts: institutionalized elitism, the danwei system, and a collectivism vision of management. The institutionalized elitism refers to the institutions for selection, training, utilizing, and honoring the best. The danwei system is defined as a working/living community under a single authority. Organizationally, it supports the institutions of elitism. Both concepts are based upon a collectivism vision, that is, a collective should take care of the interests of both the collective and its members, and the collective interests are supreme over individual interests. These ideas strongly conform to the Grand Union (datong), a utopian ideal of Confucianism. Although many changes have occurred in HUST since 1985, the features mentioned are unlikely to disappear in the near future. Knowing these features should help people in working with people in China, and monitoring the changes should be a help in predicting the progress of China.

In China, higher vocational education (HVE) is a specific educational form in terms of its the educational goals, management structure, and close relationship with the economy. During the past quarter century, China has experienced not only a substantial increase in economic progress, but also the influence of globalization on its political, socio-economic, and educational development. This thesis examines how HVE has changed since the emergence of a socialist market economy (SME) in 1992. It interprets the relationship between globalization and HVE in terms of actual changes that have occurred at the Vocational College of Shanghai Jiaotong University (VCSJTU). / The thesis is significant for three reasons. First, it generates useful insights into the process of HVE policy implementation in China since its economic transformation in the early 1990s, and interprets the relationship between globalization, SME, and HVE. The case study also generates insights which can contribute to understanding HVE policy on learning in relation to the context of the economic situation within China and the impact of globalization. Second, the thesis puts special emphasis on analyzing the culture and value changes in VCSJTU since its foundation and explores the deep roots between different values and their implications for people's understanding and appreciation of globalization in the school context. Third, the academic contributions of this case study include theoretical frames of reference on culture, education, and economic globalization. In particular, the study outlines and analyzes (with reflections) the experience gained during the internal economic transformations within China---an analysis which contributes to the international sociology of education, to an understanding of the values within education in relation to the impact of globalization.

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This study has two purposes: (1) to document and analyze the centralization phenomena in China's higher education system and (2) to make suggestions to improve or modify the centralization of China's higher education system in light of the documentation and analysis. A major outcome of this study is an analysis of telephone interviews and secondary documents, and four recommendations are derived from this analysis. In this study four research questions have been investigated: (1) What relationship exists between the government and individual colleges or universities? What should this relationship be? (2) What kind of relationship exists between the Party committee and the university administration, especially the relationship between the university president and Party committee? What should this relationship be? (3) How much autonomy should the colleges and universities possess? (4) How should higher education institutions move from the centralization planning economy and adapt themselves to the market economy? Two methods have been employed in this study: secondary document analysis and telephone interviewing. The secondary analysis consists of information collection in both Chinese and American libraries, information evaluation, categorization, and analysis. The telephone interviewing has been used to strengthen secondary analysis. The interviews were conducted with 15 Chinese scholars who were studying in the U.S. at the time and who have either worked in China's higher education system for more than ten years or have assumed some administrative responsibilities above the department level in that system. The major findings of the telephone interviews and secondary analysis lead to the conclusion that the higher education system in present China is highly centralized and, according to the consensus viewpoint, should be decentralized in light of the four recommendations made in this study. / Ph. D.