Multilevel research on factors impacting international branch campuses’ global integration and local responsiveness: an empirical investigation of two Canadian cases

ABSTRACT

The considerable institutional distance between home and host countries of most international branch campuses (IBCs) necessitates that they address the managerial challenge of balancing global integration and local responsiveness. Previous studies have investigated IBCs’ strategies for addressing this challenge as well as the macro- or micro-level factors impacting their strategies. This study extends previous research by constructing a multilevel framework for understanding both macro- and micro-level factors and adopting it to guide the empirical investigation of two Canadian cases. The results demonstrate that the two Canadian IBCs have maintained a high level of localisation in staffing but different levels of globalisation in curriculum. Like many other IBCs, these two IBCs, as institutions, are inactive in research, although they do provide occasional support for research activities. Such strategies are increasingly influenced by the institutional forces in their host countries than those in their home country at the macro level. At the micro level, the strategies are primarily impacted by their students’ educational demands. These findings exemplify strategies for other IBCs and for Canadian postsecondary institutions that consider opening overseas campuses.

KEYWORDS:

• Global integration and local responsiveness
• international branch campuses
• Canada
• multilevel research
• transnational education

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Shanghai Vancouver Film School and Algonquin College-Kuwait for providing assistance in participant recruitment and thank all interviewees for contributing their time and effort to participating in the study. In addition, the authors would also like to thank Donetta M. Hines, Chao Zhang, Gesthika Kaltsidis, Ian Van Haren, Karen Paul, Mani Chakrabarty, Marc Ducusin, Tzintli Chavez Luna, and Yoojin Lee for reviewing earlier versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Home institutions’ refer to the foreign postsecondary institutions in whose name the IBCs operate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a research project [grant number 2022IICEZS13] funded by Beijing Normal University.