Ethical Considerations

Before interviews began, a letter seeking informed consent for the project (Appendix 3) was sent to interviewees to inform them of the purpose of the project and asking for consent for their interviews to be recorded and transcribed, and possibly quoted in any publications and presentations arising from this study. Before the final draft, including interview quotes, was submitted, the author asked for permission from all interviewees’ to use the interview quotes.

Regarding the Monash Warwick Alliance, the author concluded the Confidentiality Consolidation and Catalyzing Maturity

Agreement (Appendix 4) with Monash University and the University of Warwick in accordance with the relevant institutional act.

Below is a summary of the informed consent letter:

ž All data will be treated with the utmost respect and will be securely stored.

ž The provided information will be treated as confidential and will be anonymised.

ž Anonymised direct quotes from the interview can be used in publications and presentations arising from this study.

ž Information about this project, including interview data, might be shared with the thesis supervisor and other appropriate staff at the University of Bath.

ž Interviews will be undertaken at a time and place that is convenient for the interviewee.

The following items were raised with members of the Monash Warwick Alliance in their consent form:

ž E-mail contact is through the primary contact person of the Monash-Warwick Project Team based at Monash and restricted to reasonable levels.

ž A first and final draft of any report or outcome of the research will be provided, together with a copy of the thesis for each university upon completion, for the review and comment by the Monash-Warwick Project Team.

ž The author agrees that the Monash Warwick Alliance will be able to use material produced by the research work.

5.8 Limitations

International partnerships in the present higher education cover wide range of types and scopes. International partnerships can be in the form a simple bilateral student exchange agreement to a wider collaboration of more than three universities. Some partnerships can also include more comprehensive and broader collaborations such as global consortia and networks.

In terms of the scope of activities, currently international partnerships developed by universities appear in many forms including: student, faculty and staff mobility, collaborative degrees (joint, double or dual, and consecutive degrees), collaborative teaching or joint curricula, overseas campuses, cooperative development and institutional capacity-building projects, collaborative academic operations (jointly established unit, a share space, etc.), and projects involving organisations, businesses, and communities (Gatewood and Sutton 2016, p.3-7). Although there is a broad range of study areas within international partnerships as described, the area of this thesis is limited to three bilateral partnerships, one of which

concerns multiple areas of scope and the other two are limited to a double degree programme.

Another limitation relates to the focus of this thesis, that is, the management approaches of partnerships and the individual partner universities. At present, many universities belong to international partnerships and it is possible that each university manages its partnership differently because of the particular conditions affecting that university (e.g., national higher education systems, institutional policy and culture, and financial situation). Therefore, the specific cases of the five universities analysed within this thesis are particular cases and may not be generalised.

With a sufficient understanding of the limitations, however, it is expected that the advantages of case study research will show that the management approach model proposed in this thesis could be applicable and transferable and tested later with larger samples.

In addition, the interviews conducted in this thesis were transcribed and interpreted by the author. Thus, case studies represent interpretations of the social reality and this raises the problem of researcher bias (Scapens 1990, p.277). To reduce such bias in the assessment of evidence as much as possible, the author’s interpretations of the interviewees’ comments were fed back to the interviewees for further scrutiny.

CHAPTER 6 FINDINGS

6.1 Introduction

As previously discussed, a phase- and principle-based management model for successful international partnerships was developed based on the assumption that the three critical principles are required to ensure the success of international partnerships, namely accountability, transparency, and learning capacity. Accountability is closely related to management competence, particularly to a leader’s behavioural obligations of responsibility and answerability to stakeholders. Accountability embodies the scope of the authority of leadership and management roles. More specifically, it is embodied in those practices relating to a clear demarcation of responsibility in the process of decision making. This is also true for management, control, and the coordination of partnerships both between participating organisations and within each organisation (see Chapter 4.4 and Table 3 for further descriptions of accountability as a principle).

Transparency can create connections among those involved in the relevant organisations to enhance collaborative behaviour and trust. Thus, transparency is crucial for building collaboration and trust between partner organisations as well as among the constituent organs in such organisations.

Learning capacity is the ability to internalise experience and know-how to improve a partnership’s future performance and reduce future instability. Learning organisations are able to learn from one another and accumulate knowledge and know-how, and utilise these advantages for continuous improvement, adaptation to changing conditions, and crisis management (Bronder and Pritzl 1992, p.418, 420).

Based on the idea of the three critical principles, this chapter analyses empirical data concerning both partial and task-specified international partnerships promoting a double degree programme (DDP) and the comprehensive and organised strategic alliance of the Monash Warwick Alliance. Based on these data, the attendant practices exhibited in the two types of international partnership can be identified.