Different, yet similar: factors motivating international degree collaboration in higher education. The case of Finnish-Russian double degree programmes

ABSTRACT

The study investigates factors motivating universities to engage in international degree collaboration. The Finnish-Russian university framework is used as the locus for studying international collaboration. The paper employs resource dependency and institutional, stakeholder and market push and pull perspectives in a conceptual model explaining the drivers of international degree collaboration. The research focuses on the interaction of the various factors that motivate partners to seek international degree cooperation, possible sources of conflict, and issues of compatibility and complementarity. In particular, the study compares the roles of different stakeholders and the institutional contexts of Finland and Russia. The motives of the Finnish and Russian universities included in the study were found to be generally compatible, yet different enough to complement each other.

KEYWORDS:

• International collaboration
• double degree programme
• higher education
• university stakeholders
• internationalisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Victoria Kompanets is a doctoral student at the School of Engineering Science, Industrial Engineering and Management department and a coordinator at the Research Services at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). Her research interests include international cooperation and stakeholder involvement in higher education.

Juha Väätänen is a Professor of the School of Business and Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). His research is focused on international business operations with sustainability and emerging markets perspective. Prior to joining the academia, he worked in international firms with operations in emerging markets. He has published in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Multinational Business Review and International Journal of Innovation Management.

ORCID

Victoria Kompanets http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4673-2939

Notes

1 In this article, the terms cooperation and collaboration are used almost as synonyms. While both terms mean working together, collaboration is used to emphasise more active and intensive work of partners alongside each other to achieve the same goal.

2 China and India were excluded from the Human Capital Report due to lack of reliable data.