This study analyzes whether academics with advanced degrees from foreign universities are more research productive than their domestic counterparts in the three selected East Asian higher education systems -Korea, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The three systems have relatively large proportions of foreign degree holders among their professoriates. The data for this study is drawn from the Changing Academic Profession survey. In our negative binominal regression analysis, we found that foreign degree holders are not more research productive than their colleagues with domestic degrees, and even slightly less productive than domestic degree holders in soft disciplines (arts, humanities, and social sciences) in Korea unless they have further foreign post-doc experience after their PhD. Furthermore, foreign degree holders are less productive in hard disciplines (natural sciences, engineering, and bio-medical sciences) in Malaysia. Finally, we discuss the findings and attribute them to contextual differences between the three localities.
International competition drives research universities to find ways to anchor globalization for academic productivity and innovation through cross-border collaboration. This paper examines the case of pre-and postcolonial Hong Kong and how its universities transited from undergraduate institutions to highly ranked research universities within 30 years. While this is attributed to an enabling environment of institutional autonomy, open borders and cross-cultural capacity, a case study of one research university points to the role played in all of Hong Kong's universities by network agents, institutional arrangements, and brain circulation to recruit and retain international scholars and scientists. While this has strengthened capacity, it cannot be sustained without indigenous academic leadership to ensure that globalization is anchored in local culture. The paper makes the case that the Hong Kong model can be generalizable as a cosmopolitan model for developing countries, as it has in the Chinese mainland, even Hong Kong research universities continues to align with the general rise and development of highquality universities in Beijing and Shanghai.
East Asian higher education is experiencing a massive growth in doctoral education with the world-class university initiatives. The growth of doctoral education in the region is remarkable especially as seen in the Chinese system which became positioned as the world's second largest doctoral degree-granting system. Yet, there are growing issues in doctoral education related to system reform, graduate employment in a changing job market, program quality, research funding, and even the identity of doctoral education (professional training vs. training next generation scholars). These are globally emerging issues for policy makers and higher education scholars. This article will encourage academic discussions on the challenges and global trends in doctoral education from the comparative perspective of Anglo-American and European systems.
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