Cultivating Global Scholars: Delving into Chinese Doctoral Students’ Integration Experiences at Finnish Universities Through an Institutional Logics Lens

Abstract

International doctoral students are key actors in globalized knowledge society. While the value of international doctorates lies in the ability to develop and leverage knowledge across borders and cultures, such competencies can be acquired only when students successfully integrate into the host systems or universities in their international mobility experiences. However, international doctoral students encounter multiple challenges in integration, highlighting a mismatch between their expectations and the practices at the host universities. This article unpacks this mismatch and its causes from an institutional logics’ perspective through interviews with ten Chinese doctoral students and four Finnish supervisors. We found that Chinese students’ expectations of doctoral education were largely influenced by the institutional logics of profession, bureaucratic state, and family, whereas the contexts of Finnish universities were mainly informed by the logics of profession, democratic state, and corporation. The disparity in logic constellations led to the students’ confusion about their role and relations with supervisors. Further, this study shows that reciprocal learning in intercultural supervision can mitigate logics conflicts and create opportunities for innovations in doctoral education in the host university. We call for more efforts to reconcile the logics conflicts that that affect students’ integration, as this could foster organizational innovation.

Embarking on the postdoc journey: Unveiling Chinese doctoral graduates' expectations and experiences

“…Whilst doctoral candidates and graduates have become a major workforce for knowledge production and transfer globally (Zheng et al, 2023) and China is home to one of the largest doctoral education systems in the world, studying the employment of Chinese doctoral graduates is crucial for understanding their role in advancing scientific knowledge and contributing to global scholarship. From 2015 to 2020, this system produced approximately 290,000 doctorates, with an average employment rate of 94.01% (Luo et al, 2022).…”