Expatriate academics and managing diversity: a Korean host university’s perspective

How do international faculty at Japanese universities view their integration?

“…For example, provided with sufficient funding initiatives, Chinese universities strive for the "world-leading experts" with study/work experiences abroad to enhance research capabilities (Wu & Huang, 2018 ; Mok and Marginson, 2021 ). In contrast, international faculty at South Korean universities are expected to teach, develop international networks, and participate in social contributions rather than research (Shin & Gress, 2018 ). Therefore, the practical milieus of Japanese HEIs have led to the complexity of international faculty at Japanese universities, resulting in their comparatively diverse actual practices of integration.…”

“…Regarding multiculturalism, it is considered desirable due to its fundamental denial of the assimilation theory and emphasis on the presence of immigrants. Studies on international faculty’s integration from this perspective are often associated with interculturality, diversity, and internationalization (Kim, 2009 , 2016 ; Shin & Gress, 2018 ), and interactions with locals are highlighted. For example, Jiang et al ( 2010 ) use "academic acculturation" to describe the process whereby international faculty become a part of a group and integrate with its members.…”

World class universities and international student mobility: Repositioning strategies in the Asian Tigers

“…These policies underscore the growing sense that universities in South Korea need to improve institutional quality to attract more international students, a need that has become critical as an economic response to a serious domestic student shortage (Byun and Kim, 2010). Meanwhile, in order to foster institutional excellence under a WCU rubric, the government has allocated funding to universities on the basis of specific evaluations, and universities have responded aggressively in a way that has spurred deep institutional changes, including a culture of research productivity (Jung, 2014; Shin, 2009), the adoption of English as the academic lingua franca (Byun et al, 2011), the recruitment of overseas faculty members (Kim, 2011, 2016b; Kim et al, 2021; Park, 2018; Shin and Gress, 2018), an increasingly centralized form of institutional governance (Shin, 2011), and a dependency culture on US-dominated global rankings and other “imported” measures of excellence (Byun et al, 2013; Deem et al, 2008; Mok, 2007; Palmer and Cho, 2012).…”

Challenges to research systems, academic research and knowledge production in East Asia: learning from the past to inform future policy

“…Another issue involves attracting highly qualified researchers to certain East Asian jurisdictions (Hong Kong is an exception; see Postiglione & Jung, 2017). Many research universities and other institutions in East Asia struggle to create appropriate conditions to attract and nurture talent from abroad (e.g., Shin & Gress, 2018). They consistently rely on reverse brain-drain policies and local talent to foster knowledge creation, which may not be sufficient to increase competitiveness.…”