University governance and academic leadership: perceptions of European and Chinese university staff and perceived need for capacity building

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study is to explore Chinese and European university staff members’ perceptions about the challenges and capacity building needs in terms of academic leadership and university governance. A survey questionnaire with open-ended questions was administered to 58 staff members from 7 Chinese universities and 31 staff members from 8 European universities. The results showed that in addition to the competitive challenges universities encounter, developing leadership and managerial skills for Chinese and leadership, managerial, and interpersonal skills for European participants are the major challenges for academic leaders and the most frequently cited areas potential for capacity building. Leadership skills and practices of academic leaders were highlighted by both groups most to learn from each other while change adaptation skills of Chinese academic leaders and personal capabilities of European academic leaders are the specific aspects of academic leadership referred most for experience sharing between these two contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic leadership
• university governance
• capacity building
• EU–China collaboration
• perceptions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Chang Zhu is professor in Educational Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She is director of the EU–China Higher Education Research Center and coordinates the LEAD (Erasmus+ CBHE) project; and was coordinator of the EU–China DOC project under the EU Erasmus Mundus Program.

Merve Zayim-Kurtay is a postdoctoral researcher in Educational Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her research focuses on academic leadership, change-related attitudes and emotions, and organizational trust.

ORCID

Chang Zhu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0057-275X

Merve Zayim-Kurtay http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4499-2139