Re-Evaluation of International Student Affairs Units: Exploring 9S Model focused on the Convergence in Universities

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  In Poster Session: Re-Evaluation of International Student Affairs Units: Exploring 9S Model focused on the Convergence in Universities

Proposal

The increasing number of international students after the global pandemic draws attention to the higher education issues. Also, international student affairs (ISA) units have become a sector intertwined with other organizational and individual stakeholders in universities pursuing their global missions. Therefore, a more holistic approach is required to evaluate an ISA unit. This paper is a preliminary theoretical preparation for practising re-evaluating an ISA administrative unit, bridging the organization’s internal and external elements from diverse literature on internationalization of higher education (IHE), ISA, and organizational evaluation. Diagrams intend for more innovative applications to be examined, especially in institutions with less developed ISA systems.

ISA administration is an indispensable part of the IHE. Among the multiple theory approaches, the processes approach covers various elements with a holistic perspective, while the organizational approach focuses on the shared ethos and cultures in a university, which, therefore, sets specific guidance to perceive IHE and solidifies the feasibility of this study. Organizational challenges include technical, bureaucratic, cultural and dynamic. Professional support for ISA practitioners has also been inadequate in some countries, such as China, with smaller portions of international students and few professional associations. Further, it should emphasize student perspectives due to the complexity of global issues intertwined with geographical mobility and knowledge transfer.

Promoting an inclusive and convergent supporting community for ISA thus has become a significant objective. The rationale for convergence is shared in global research on the IHE, integrated into every dimension - curriculum, scholarly language, structure, and ambience of universities, which are underestimated in ISA practices. In China, the lack of convergence in ISA (Table 1) comes from structural contextualization, i.e., the incompetence and the repetition of work responsibilities between administrative units, with the input of the higher-level government. And cultural adaptation could be hindered by language proficiency, disparate conversational contexts, tenets and stigma stereotypes in mind at different stages.

Here, the author presents a model revealing the mesoscopic and microscopic elements discussed above - McKinsey’s 7S Model, which has been applied in various fields since the 1980s. It connects seven elements in three parts as the Hard “S” Elements (Strategy, Structure, and Systems), the Soft “S” (Style, Staff, and Skills), and the Shared Values. The extended 9S Model aimed to cover the external collaboration and student convergence experience with the Extended “S” Elements, Surroundings and Students (Figure 1). The external collaborations with other collegiate units could be adjusted in the extended Model as “Surroundings”; microscopic data from the international student experience will contribute to another extended “S” for students (Table 2). In addition, the hierarchical upper-level organizations, e.g., the university, also participates in organizational actions. Thus, the outsider extends to collegiate universities with stakeholders in the disciplinary division and other functional entities. The shifted Model offers a resource-based view to exploring ISA administration’s strategic attainment, particularly in times of change.

Author

• Chenjun Yu, University of Michigan Ann Arbor