Chapter 3 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework
3.3 Stakeholders in Higher Education and their Roles in Quality Assurance
3.3.2 Using Clark’s (1983) Triangle of Coordination as the Analytical Framework
Clark’s (1983)’s triangle of coordination is applied as the theoretical framework for guiding this study. Clark conceptualised that higher education systems operate in a triangle
of coordination model which consists of the state, market and the academic professionals in higher education institutions which he himself termed as ‘academic oligarchy’ (See Figure 3.1). According to Clark, each corner represents an extreme of one force and a
minimum of the other two, while locations within the triangle represent combinations of
the three forces in different degrees. Based on this, he proposed that there are three
extreme models of coordination, bureaucratic and political coordination, professional
coordination and market coordination.
Figure 3-1 Clark's (1983) Triangle of Coordination
Higher Education State Market Academic oligarchy
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In the bureaucratic and political coordination, the state manages the governance of higher
education through bureaucratic and political command. According to Clark, there are five
pathways of development in a bureaucratically-coordinated higher education system:
layering, jurisdictional expansion, personnel enlargement, administrative specialization, and rule expansion. Layering refers to ‘the piling of administrative echelon upon administrative echelon in an unremitting quest for coordination, symmetry, logic and comprehensive order’. Layering makes the administrative pyramid taller. Jurisdictional expansion refers to an increase in the jurisdictional scope of administrative agencies such
as ministries of education. Personnel enlargement refers to the increase of administrators in
the administrative system. Administrative specialization means an increase in the expertise
in administrative work or a shift from amateurs to experts in their field. Lastly, rule
expansion refers to an increase in the number and complexity of formal rules designed to
guide decisions. Clark described that as a model of bureaucratic coordination, the state influences higher education through ‘a number of strategies (by increasing the number of levels of formal coordination, the jurisdictional scope of administrative agencies, number of administrators, levels of administrative expertise, and number and complexity of rules)’, and in the model of political coordination, the government increases influences by ‘a
different set of tactics (by upgrading the political priority of issues related to higher
education and political involvement across the sector and by raising standards for university governance)’ (Salazar and Leihy, 2013, p.54).
In professional coordination, knowledge is the authority. Academic authorities can be
discipline-rooted with sub-types of personal, collegial, guild and professional authority to
be found. Professors and academic professionals in the university faculties or departments
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The market coordination consists of three major types of market: the consumer market, the
labour market, and the institutional market. The market coordination refers to higher
education institutions are influenced by the competition of the market (Ben-David, 1972;
Clark, 1983). The competition could include student enrolment, academic labours, and
reputation of higher education institutions.
Clark (1983) suggested that these three forces interact with one another, resulting in
different levels of influences on higher education. At one time, the influence of the state
may be stronger than the market or the professionals and at another time, the influence of
the market may grow stronger due to changes of social and economic development. In
other words, the relationship of the actors would change but always remain the shape of a
triangle. Due to differences in national contexts, the model of coordination varies among
different countries. For example, he believed that the state was the strongest force in the
Swedish higher education system, whereas the USA was well down, heading towards the
market extreme. However, it is important to note that the triangle of coordination is not
static but dynamic. In other words, the level of the influences among the three forces will
change. This applies to the situation of the UK higher education system. It is suggested that
during the past three decades, UK higher education is heading away from the academic
oligarchy in a zigzag fashion towards the corners of the state and the market (Brennan,
2010).
Traditionally, higher education has been organized by academic professionals themselves.
However, with the change of the external environment, the system of higher education is
becoming more and more complex with more forces (e.g. the state and the market)
governing higher education, defining and framing activity. The state and the market greatly
influence higher education coordination. Typically, the state has conspicuous regulatory
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directing funding, creating the conditions in which it might be pursued (Jongbloed, 2003);
whereas, the market facilitates unregulated exchanges among people competing for
personnel, clientele, financial resources, and prestige (Clark, 1983, p.168).
For nearly 35 years, Clark’s triangle of coordination theory has been used as a paradigm for describing, assessing and comparing systems of higher education. The contribution of
this theory lies in that it helps to conceptualise the complex mechanism of higher education
by depicting the interplay/ tensions between the three key players, the state, the market and
the academic oligarchy. However, like many other theories, this theory also reveals its
limitations as higher education evolves. Marginson and Rhoades (2002) argued that this
theory does not take into account the influence of global forces in today’s globalised world.
What they were suggesting was that in the contemporary globalised society, higher
education institutions are influenced by global, national and local forces. For example,
some international organisations such as OECD, World Bank, and ENQA can be
understood to be a force from a global perspective. Based on this argument, they extended this theory into the notion of ‘glonacal’ which represents a different level of three- dimensional forces consisting of the global, the national, and the local. Salazar and Leihy
(2013) moved this theory forward by tracing how each domain (public domain,
competition domain, and institutional domain) functions. For example, in the public
domain, politics, bureaucracy, and the populace are the key factors that influence higher
education coordination. In the institutional domain, the managers, academics, and students
are the entities around which university subcultures form (Clark, 1983). In the competition
domain, prestige, resources, and placement are the focus of competition in higher
education.
Although scholars have developed this theory of coordination in higher education based on
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additionally be useful as an analytical tool to examine the functioning of the basic forces
identified by Clark (Salazar and Leihy, 2013). In the literature of higher education, it was
found that this theory has been employed in a number of empirical studies (Suspitsin and
Suspitsyna, 2007; Maggio, 2011; Lang, 2015; Sidhu and Christie, 2015). For example, in
the transnational higher education context, Sidhu and Christie (2015) studied the dynamic
processes of how the global market forces played out in the specific national and
institutional context of a Malaysian-Australian joint venture. The authors argued that joint
ventures operate in a complex context in which the state and global/ local forces interact
with each other simultaneously and from multiple directions. In particular, they suggested
it is necessary to take local conditions into account.
Clark’s (1983) theory of triangle of coordination is employed in this study as the analytical lens because it offers me a basic frame through which to focus on how the key stakeholders
(the state, the market, and academic oligarchy) influence quality assurance in transnational
higher education partnerships. Considering that the case study partnership institute is a
higher education institution jointly developed between the Chinese parent university and
the UK home institution in China, it was very likely that quality assurance in the case study
partnership institute was subject to the influences of at least the Chinese government, the
Chinese local market and the academic professionals and staff working for this institute.
The major purpose of this study is to understand the mechanism of how the key
stakeholders influence quality assurance approaches in the partnership institute. By
adopting Clark’s (1983) triangle of coordination it allows me, as a starting point, to
concentrate on investigating the roles of each stakeholder and to examine the interrelations
and interactions among each of them.
In addition, I considered Marginson and Rhoades's (2002) notion of ‘glonacal’ as the
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the simultaneous existence of global, national and local dimensions and forces influencing
higher education nowadays in this increasingly globalised world (Marginson and Rhoades,
2002). Marginson and Rhoades’s (2002) ‘glonacal’ conception has extended Clark’s (1983)
model by introducing global influences in the neo-liberal era. Marginson and Rhoades's
(2002) notion of ‘glonacal’ may appear to be more suitable for transnational higher
education studies because it has incorporated the dimension of global perspective which
seems to fit better into this transnational context. However, it is important to be aware that
Marginson and Rhoades’s (2002) focus is on global agencies or international policies,
national policies and local agencies such as students, faculty or non-faculty professionals
and administrators. The glonacal agency heuristic is suitable for tracking the sphere and
capacities of international organisations such as World Bank, OECD and networks of
professionals. However, an analysis of the data in this study indicates that there was little
indication that the global dimension of influence, for instance, global agencies or
international polities was prominent in the case study partnership institute’s quality
assurance mechanisms. This might be because the present case study partnership institute
is a second-tier college which has less impact nationwide or worldwide compared to
world-class universities.
Nevertheless, it is important to mention that Clark’s (1983) triangle of coordination is not
the only fitting model and also that it was not completely helpful in understanding the
complexities and dimensions of the context. Specifically speaking, Clark’s (1983) model
was only looking at higher education from the system level in one dimension. It did not
assist in capturing the dynamics of meso and micro dimensions. Due to the fact that the
present case study institute is a transnational partnership, the context was much more
complex. As a result, the analysis is on multi-dimensional levels. In other words, my study
will not only look at quality assurance at the macro level, examining the influences of the
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exercised respectively by the senior management at the university level and the academic
managers, teaching academics, and students at the partnership institute multi-
dimensionally. In particular, the micro level stakeholders’ engagement in quality assurance
practices are looked upon carefully to uncover the complexities of assuring quality in
transnational higher education partnerships.
3.3.3 Roles of Stakeholders in Higher Education and their Influences on