‘University of the world’ or the globalised, entrepreneurial logic of professionalism management in the Vietnam context

Abstract

This case study of a university in Vietnam examines how professionalism is established and managed in the university context as manifested in institutional quality assurance policies and practices towards academic staff development. By looking at both 'regulations and instrumentalities', the research showcases the different political forces involving in the making of professionalism. The findings suggest that the professionalism emerging from the case study is informed by a managerialist ethos. This striving university with its globalised logic can, in turn, be interpreted against a backdrop of larger socio-cultural contexts. In constructing the contemporary professionalism, there exist several forces and together they form an ecology system that includes both internal and external pressures under the overarching globalisation. A better understanding of these forces raises other questions about how they might change the traditional relationship between university and academic staff members, the impact of globalisation and the nature of teacher work and autonomy in higher education.

Organisational digital capability: a cross-country review of guidance

“…Here, Jisc do refer to using methods such as Appreciative Inquiry, as a positive model of change management, but it is imaginable that higher education establishments might well operationalise an approach to change which is both instrumental and without consultation or engagement. There is already evidence of this in the UK (Mohamed Hashim et al ., 2022), so there may be instances of this Vietnam in the case of digital transformation especially in higher education organisations with strongly managerialist cultures (Vu, 2019).…”

“…Here, whilst the Jisc framework was not designed within this rapid policy development setting, it does highlight the need for a meta-prioritising function within the Organisational Digital Culture dimension. The need for this prioritisation is crucial given the variability of resources available across different institutions – each institution therefore needs to have a strategy about how digital infrastructures should be “[p]rocure[d] and/or develop[ed], implement[ed], manage[d] and maintain[ed]” (Vu, 2019, p. 2) as suggested by the framework to make sure the long-term development of digitalisation. In one way, the framework is useful to pinpoint investment not just by institutional leaders, but also policy makers who can use it to articulate schemas of investment profiles across institutions.…”

Benevolent leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors in a higher education context: a moderated mediation model

“…Annually, around 20% of the state budget has been spent on education. Most universities in Vietnam have been striving to meet international standards; thus, the managerial ethos and professional corporate management practices have been increasingly applied to reform university governance as well as to improve lecturer performance (Pham-Thai et al, 2018;Vu, 2019). Thus, Vietnamese universities offer a rich setting to examine how benevolent leadership, LMX, affective commitment, and OCBs of lecturers are interrelated under the contingency role of two Benevolent leadership and OCB attachment styles.…”