Strategic priorities of small nations: Lessons from Israel and Singapore in building legitimacy

• In Event: Asian comparative international studies

Proposal

A vast majority of studies that examine institutions’ legitimacy building strategies tend to focus on institutions from larger nations as opposed to smaller nations (See Munene, 2012; Zhang & Kinser, 2016). Other than access to ample resources, another advantage of a large country is access to a big domestic market (Auty, 1994). Given this, higher education institutions (HEIs) located in small nations have to be more precise with their institutional strategic planning in order to remain competitive on a global scale. In an era of rapid globalization, small nations such as Singapore and Israel, due to their limited resources, face growing challenges within their higher education sector (Bolton, Botha, & Bacon-Shone, 2017; Iram, & Schmida, 1993). To meet the local demand and stay relevant in the global affairs, they constantly need to find ways to address the various dimensions of regional and international competition.
Despite the limitations imposed by size, HEIs from Singapore and Israel consistently rank within the top 100 positions in the recent ranking lists such as TIMES, Shanghai JioaTong, and US News and World Report. Current literature that discusses HEIs in these two nations do not adequately capture the institutional strategic priorities made by them. Through a careful analysis of Singapore and Israel’s university websites and strategic plans, we first ask how do HEIs from small nations build legitimacy for their public and on a global scale? Then we gather the ways in which small nation HEIs foster diversity, buffer against regional competition and interrupt rapid privatization. Understanding the strategic priorities of HEIs in small nations from distinct regions helps us to trace their vulnerabilities, challenges to achieving economies of scale and motivations to overcome transnational borders to build legitimacy. Furthermore, findings of this study provide recommendations for lagging nations’ HEIs to develop strategic plans that allow them to compete globally.
We use the economic framework of resource curse also known as ‘the paradox of plenty” to conceptualize the findings of this paper (Auty, 1994; Colom-jaén, & Campos-serrano, 2013). In utilizing this perspective, we highlight ways that small nations strategize to overcome their resource limitations.
Singapore and Israel

On the surface Singapore and Israel may appear to be very distinct countries with approximate populations of 5.7 and 8.5 million respectively (World Bank, 2018), but there are several similarities. For instance both countries stand firmly on a global stage and rank high on numerous ranking lists including the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Indices (HDI). According to the UNDP, out of a 189 countries, Singapore’s HDI is higher than the United States and comes in at position 9, and Israel comes in at 22 (UNDP, 2018). In the US News and World report’s best country ranking list, Israel ranks 8 and Singapore comes in 24. Above all measures included in the methodology for these rankings, their consistent high ranks demonstrate how their relatively small population size has not deterred Singapore and Israel from developing strong economies (US News and World Report, 2018). Their positionality also indicates the strengths of their education systems.
Israel’s education reform has allowed for the development of public and private colleges to (Iram, & Schmida, 1993). Over the past two decades, Singapore’s higher education sector has seen rapid expansion (Bolton, Botha, & Bacon-Shone, 2017). As both nation’s tertiary education has seen drastic development over the years, many lessons can be drawn from their successes.

Method

In this qualitative analysis, we first began by examining strategic plans of 8 HEIs in Israel and 6 institutions from Singapore. The institutions included in this study are all public universities. All institutions included in this study provide a variety of programs and full-time undergraduate degrees. The published strategic plans as well as the websites of all institutions, are used as sources of data for this study.
Over a thirteen month period, the website content and strategic plans of institutions in the sample were analyzed by both authors. We then drafted analysis gathered from the strategic plans by categorizing information into previously generated codes such as local research, collaboration, global engagement, and international partnership. We then compared institutions between nations to understand the ways they engage in legitimacy building strategies.

Findings
Although the institutions are stratified differently in Singapore and Israel, findings at the country level reveal that whenever resources were limited in scope, institutions choose to partner with other leading global HEIs to advance their educational offerings to minimize the effect of brain drain and provide greater range of degrees. Another impetus for this could also be to align with their institutional goals of meeting the demands of the global economy. A vast majority of universities' websites indicated their pursuit of scientific research excellence, innovation and international cooperation as a goal. Furthermore, all institutions acknowledge globalization and its potential impact on the future of their students. For example, one institution from Singapore states that to prepare “graduates for a fast changing, globalizing world” they offer several dual-degrees, exchange programs and internships with colleges around the world. Another institution from Israel states that they provide programs with global perspectives and in partnership with other institutions from around the world so that their students can “apply the knowledge they gained to improve the lives of their local communities”. These global partnerships allow institutions to diversify their portfolios as they overcome the limitations of the range of degrees’ students can enroll in without having to travel overseas. These small nations’ institutions also partnered with institutions in similar or higher ranked positions to advance their goals.
Conclusions
Small nations’ can overcome resource limitations and improve their domestic education sector through meaningful collaboration and strategic partnerships with other leading institutions. Key characteristics of small nation HEIs include development of innovative strategies that help build public legitimacy, advance human capital and transcend local boundaries to make them studying locally more advantageous to domestic students.

Authors

• Sowmya Ghosh, University of Arizona

• Hilla Tal, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev