DONG LI Researcher Higher Education Group Department of Management Studies

2. Exploring the integration of Chinese merged Higher Education Institutions in Management and Leadership dimension DONG LI Researcher Higher Education Group Department of Management Studies Tampere University, Finland Dong.li@uta.fi

3. Mergers in Chinese HEIs • In the 1990s, the Chinese government began a series of efforts to restructure the national higher education system. The merger was the most important tool in this process, in which nearly all of the key universities have been involved. By 2005, there had been more than 420 cases of merger, which had involved more than 1,000 higher education institutions. Even though the merger of higher education institutions is not a new phenomenon in the world, there is no doubt that such a large scale of mergers as can be observed in China, is a unique phenomenon.

4. Mergers HEIs in 1990-2005(MOE,2005)

5. Purpose of this study How does the merger influence the management and leadership? And How do the management and leadership re-influence the integration of the merger? Merger Management Integration Leadership

6. Research Method • In this study, qualitative research will be employed. • Case study will be main method; literature review Data collection--- • Interview ( the key persons choice; the good questions; conducted by thematic interview) • Documents studies, observational studies and personal working experience will also be employed in the data collection of this study.

7. Two Definitions Merger: “Five Unifications” –Ji Baocheng (Cai,2002:P21) • One “Banzi” (leaders group), • One “Jiguo” (organization), • One “Zhidu” (administration system), • One “Caiwu” (financial administration) • and One “Fazhang Guihua” (strategic planning) --- Political; Physic; Organization --- Integration: The new university has unitary organizational structure and system; the involving people can change their pre-identity to the new organization, accepting and sharing the value of the merger to accomplish the merger strategy and other relevant organizational goals. --- Version; Value; belief; identity ---

8. Case description Hebei Normal University (HNU,1996) merged from • Hebei Normal University (HNUo,1902) • Hebei Normal institute (HNI, 1900) • Hebei Education College (HEC,1976) • Hebei Professional Technology Normal College (HPTNC,1987)

9. Motivation, Process and Outcomes Motives of Government “The Outline for Educational Reform and Development in China” (1993) “211 Project” (1998) • Readjusting the structure of old Chinese Higher Education system. • Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Chinese higher education • Improving the quality of higher education to enable the merged universities to train students who have a mix of skills to adapt the requirements of the rapidly changing society. • Breeding some First-class world universities. Motives of HEIs International perspective: National Policy; Finance; Quality; Scale; Breadth; Distribution; Reputation; Competition, etc.(Estman & Lang, 2001;Volkwein 1989;Goedegebuure, 1992) In China, the main reason is political reason As the president of HNU, Professor Wang, mentioned: “Before the new HNU was established, the four original institutions operation was well. The lack of money was a problem for every institution, but the reason for our merger was mainly because of the pressure from government. Besides this, to improve our reputation and accelerate the development of our institution was another reasons”

10. Merger Process of HNU 1) The pre-merger phase (1996) April,1996 Hebei Province government made decision about the merger of HNU, then, appointed the new leaders for the new University. 2) Transition (implementation) phase (1996-1998-2000) 1996-1998, merged all administrative departments 1998-2000, merged all faculties, units, and schools. 3) The post-merger (integration) phase (2000-present)

11. Outcomes academic and administrative (Scale, breadth, reputation; Research, teaching and learning, etc. ) • 13 top (institution) level leaders, • more than 260middle level leaders; • the total academic and administrative staffs were more than 4300; • the full-time students were more than 30,000; • the part-time students in different level were more than 100,000. • Four campuses In this study, focus on the management and leadership

12. Governance Structure • Institutional (top) levelPresident (Academic) Secretary (CCP) • ---Vice-President, Research ---Vice Secretary, Cadre • --- Vice-President, Education --- Vice Secretary, propagandas • --- Vice-President, Personnel --- Vice Secretary, labour union & • --- Vice-President, Finance audit • --- Vice-President, Logistic service --- Vice Secretary, Staff Union • --- Vice-President, Campus construction • --- Vice-President, Affair of students • (Management and Admission) • … • Middle level (1) Administrative units --- Director, Branch Secretary of CCP, Vice Directors, • Vice-Branch Secretary of CCP • (2) Academic units (Faculties and Research institutes) [1] • (3) Units of CCP • (4) Affiliated enterprises --- Director or Manager, Branch Secretary of CCP, • Vice Directors or Managers, Vice-Branch Secretary of CCP • [1]There are academic leaders (dean and vice-dean) and leaders of CCP (secretary and vice-secretary) in the faculty or institutes.

13. Finding and Discussion In China, we found four factors, which are so-called “three Ziand one Qing”. The “three Zi” include: “Paizi” (the name of the merged university), “Weizi” (Positions of leadership, including the top level and the middle level) “Piaozi” (Money); “One Qing” is historical value, culture and emotions that have formed in the hearts of staff (Shi, 2003). The Chinese vision of three “Zi” and one “Qing” has very strong link with traditional political system and management culture. There are two distinction thinking have been influencing Chinese people hundreds of years. The one is Quanli Chongbai (the power of worship); another one is Renji Guanxi (relationship network). The findings form the preliminary data collection, on the one hand, the merger affects the leadership and management of HNU, one the other hand, the leadership and management have been re-influencing the integration of the merged HNU.

14. The merger influences management an leadership 1) Power balance Government: Making Decision (Top-down); appoint new leaders Institution: Human recourse; Financial issues, etc. 2) The struggle of power (different institutions; different interest groups) 3) Governmentalization (use of power, manner of management) How to understand?

15. The political system and traditional culture are different between China and Western countries Wallin (2006) discusses the different ways of managerial thinking comparing the Eastern and the Western approaches based on his long experience from doing business with China. His main conclusions in this area are as follows: • The Western focus is on determining goals and arranging for task completion. The Eastern focus includes those same elements, but a significantly larger amount of energy is spent on determining how the goals and tasks fit into the broader scheme of the players involved. For example, who should be making which decisions, who should be the experts, who should set the goals, etc. • The role of the individual is also different. Westerners admire rugged individualism. In a Darwinistic sense this results in highly skilled and experienced leaders emerging among those who are successful after having gone off on their own. In contrast, the Easterners tend to gravitate more strongly to their social networks, and place more emphasis on the credibility and social capital of those they would choose to work with instead of just evaluating pure skill and experience criteria. (Wallin, 2006)

16. Influencing the integration • “Five Unifications” – the centralization of the administrative power. 2. The conflict of interest among different groups affects the psychology of leaders and staff 3. The enlarged scale does not always produce an improvement of efficiency. 4. The lack of the strategic planning ---- The merger is a long-term and complex process

17. Conclusion This study beads on the literature review, gives the definitions of the merger and integration in Chinese context. According to these definition to examines and explores the merger have been influencing the nature of the management and leadership, which involved the expectation of the power balance, but, which is not easy to realize; power struggle; as well as manner of the power use lead to governmentalization. These factors have been influencing the efficiency and effectiveness of the management and leadership. At the same time, the special situation of the management and leadership in merged university that have been influencing the real integration on big version, value and sharing indentify. Thus, these HEIs’ integration is a long-term and complex process. Further thinking and study • Who can as the leader of the merged HEIs? What are the skills for the leaders? Perhaps, they should be: Academic expert Education expert Administrative & management expert Statesman Sales expert Strategist and,…… What’s kind of leadership model for the merged HEIs can adapt the merger circumstance?

18. Thank you Dong Li Higher Education Group Department of Management Studies Tampere University, Finland dong.li@uta.fi