9
Some Models for Comparative International Research – The example
of Postgraduate Collaboration between Partner Institutions
Karl Koch[1]
Introduction
University institutions have over the past decades established collaborative arrangements with partner institutions, research organisations and major companies creating a vast matrix of national and international dimensions. Collaboration covers virtually every aspect of the endeavours that universities engage in, from research to short courses and the associated mobility of staff and students, facilitated by numerous and varied financial programmes. It is, therefore, crucial to be aware of the impacts of globalisation for educational partnerships and particularly in gauging the consequences on the increased ‘educational export’ competition in world markets.
London South Bank University and the Berlin School of Economics reached agreement in 2008 to enable students to pursue study-research leading to the award of PhD or MPhil.[2] At the core of the agreement was the principle of joint supervision, which can, of course, also be applied to Masters and MBA programmes.
The paper focuses on the construction of selected models facilitating postgraduate projects based on joint cross-national supervision. It distinguishes between national, international, comparative and cross-cultural research approaches.
The Framework
One of the standard text books dealing with the international business environment identifies very clearly universities as being “subject to fluctuations in the fortunes of the global economy” ( Brooks et al, 2004: 4 ) as much as any other business organisation. This, of course, underlines the national and international competitive dimension that education in general, and universities in particular, have to address. International university collaboration is undeniably an important feature for gaining international competitive advantages in this sector. International competitiveness, as objective by entrepreneurial organisations, is the mayor driving force in the phenomenon of globalisation, and the latter has increasingly driven economies towards connectivity and interdependence through the mechanisms of trade, production, and labour and financial markets.
However, globalisation has evolved over numerous phases and what distinguishes the current phase are “new production paradigms enabled by both an expansion of global productive capacity and major technological changes facilitating access to and the transfer of trade, capital, people and knowledge across borders.” (European Central Bank, 2008: 75 ). But assessing and distinguishing the significance and impact of these factors, and in particular of technological change and the role of knowledge, presents severe challenges. It is difficult to isolate the role and contribution educational industries make towards the phenomenon of globalisation although one can infer the consequences of sound educational policies. For example Table 1 reveals the comparative advantage of exports by technological content, dependent on knowledge, gained in economic areas; the figures reflect the dominance of the United States.
Table 1
Comparative advantage of exports by technological content. Average for the period 1993 – 2004
Technological Content / Euro Area / United States / ChinaHigh – Tech Industries / 0.9 / 1.4 / 1.0
Medium – Tech Industries / 1.2 / 1.1 / 0.6
Low-Tech Industries / 0.9 / 0.8 / 1.6
Textiles/Clothing/Footwear / o.9 / 0.4 / 3.6
Source: Data adapted from ECB, Monthly Bulletin, January 2008, p. 79
Note: Calculation based on Balsa index of revealed comparative advantage. An index greater than one indicates that a country specialises in that type of export.
Table 1 allows the extrapolated inference that the scope, and effectiveness, of educational policies by national states contribute to competitiveness in an international context. However, the table does not reveal the rapidly accelerating rate of change of the globalisation process impacting on advanced and emerging economies. In addition there is the growth of globalisation in terms of new markets, such as in Eastern Europe, China, India, Latin America, and South East Asia. It is precisely these aspects which present both challenges and opportunities for postgraduate research in the broad areas of business, management and industrial relations.
Research Literature in the Broad Area of Management/Business/IR
The research literature in the area of management, business and industrial relations reflects the centrality of these subjects in both their understanding of the nature and the issues, as well as the vital contribution they make to the political, social and economic decision making mechanisms. At the national level research has been continuous, documenting the evolution and analysis of these areas. Frequently the theories engendered from national studies have had an enormous and universal application. The concept of strategic choice, for example, became an important instrument for research in industrial relations subsequent to publication by Kochan and his colleagues (Kochan et al.,1984). The notion that actors or parties can exercise discretion over strategic decisions, which can transform the role, relationship, dependency with others in the industrial relation system has found wide application.
Most impressive is the move from an ethnocentric approach to models researching on a comparative and international basis. Thus there has been a significant increase in international research conducted through inter- or multi-disciplinary, cross- national and cross-cultural projects. Clark et al (1999) presented an analytical overview of the international research literature in the broad field of management; an indispensable source for researchers. The article in particular demonstrated the comparative narrow methodologies employed in international and comparative research in this field; the predominant methodologies being based on questionnaires, case studies and literature reviews. It also emphasises the dearth of studies examining the cultural impact on management in general and industrial relations in particular.
Moreover, recent analysis of human resource development research articles, between 1990 and 2003 revealed significant differences in methodological approaches between Europe and the USA (Wasi et al. , 2008). The US literature “was observed to be more practice oriented as evidenced by a stronger performance focus, greater concern with providing prescriptive implications as well as the virtual non-existence of critical perspectives (Wasi et al. , 2008: 2167).” In contrast the European literature revealed a stronger focus on critical perspectives, theoretical approaches, and less inclined to be prescriptive; underlying this is the US concern with a science paradigm based on scientific rigour and the European approach of meticulous analysis from qualitative methodologies.
There are, therefore, distinctive characteristics in the paradigms employed for management, business and industrial relations research. This paper distinguishes between three. Firstly, the Anglo-Saxon trajectory derived from the original concerns of differences and power conflicts in societies and, secondly, the search for effective managerial strategies which dominated US thinking. Finally, the European trajectory, by no means homogenous, can be divided into numerous different strands, for example Scandinavian or German models. However, the literature clearly reflects a dominance of research based on the Anglo-Saxon and US deliberation. Given the dynamic changes caused by globalisation, the emergence of powerful new economies and economic regions, there is a question of how applicable Anglo-Saxon perceptions and models of management and business structures are in this new global environment.
This specifically points to research and scholarship addressing cross-national comparative and international frames of references. To some extent the foundations for such studies have been laid, Kochan et al (1992), for example, provided initial ideas and Brewster (1995) identified and described a European model. These initial constructs, however, neglected some essential factors relevant to a full understanding of how HRM and industrial relations, for example, functioned; a central omission was the impact of cultural differences.
The recognition that “culture-bound” and “culture-free” variables were significant determinants in an analysis of cross-cultural studies led to the creation and application of integrative conceptual models for understanding HRM and related areas (Budhwar and Sparrow, 2002). There are two challenges faced by empirical research from integrative conceptual models. Firstly, the number of variables are numerous, complex and difficult to dissect out from causes-and-effects and interactions. When focusing on comparative or cross-national issues Budhwar and Sparrow (2002: 391) point out:
“…it is important to note that the influence of all the different facets of the four main national factors (i.e. , national culture, national institutions, dynamic business environments and industrial sector), contingent variables (such as size, age, nature, life cycle stage of organizations, presence of unions, and HR strategies) and the HR strategy with its different organizational strategies and policies of HRM is context-specific.”
How these variables will interact and what consequences they have is dependent on their configuration; and this in turn will determine the significance of the individual national and contingency factors.
The second issue is that the cultural dimension is an integral part of this kind of holistic model and, therefore, may not be sufficiently isolated to allow for conclusions of its specific role.
Selected Models
The initial platform for postgraduate research might be the institutions, structures and processes of the relevant national level; the principle being a systematic move from the known to the unknown. National level enquiry for the subjects under consideration are, of course, of the essence; the nation state derives its internal and external policies and strategies from their findings. The partnership concept of MPhil/PhD supervision provides, exactly at this level, unique opportunities for national models and perception to be effectively applied.
The research topics emerging from the dynamic nature of globalisation are increasingly complex and challenging. Comparison of management and business practices in the international context provide answers, for example, to the debate of convergence or divergence of national or cohesive economic and political areas, institutional arrangements or policies. Diverse as research issue may be there is a core set of questions which Pieper (1990) identified for HRM but have equal validity for the broader business and management domain:
1. How is HRM structured in individual countries?
2. What strategies are discussed?
3. What is put into practice?
4. What are the similarities and differences?
5. What is the influence of national factors such as culture, government policy, and education systems?
Importantly, this list lends itself to considerable expansion, dependent on the conceptual frameworks used and what the focus of the study might be. It is also crucial to understand that the division of models in to the national, international, comparative and cross-cultural categories is to some extent artificial; research will draw on all and there is obviously considerable overlap.
National
From the perspective of joint supervision, where supervisors are located in two different countries, the value added comes from analysis based on transfer of theoretical models. Taking the example of industrial relations research, the application of strategic choice theory to the emerging of pluralist systems in Eastern Europe can provide new insights. As Kochan et al. (1984) interpreted the theory, strategic decisions can be made if actors in the industrial relations system have discretion over decisions and that these decisions cause change in the actor’s role or relationship. The point is that the application of this framework, for example to trade unions and employers associations in Romania, provides new insights.
An unambiguous case is the analysis of industrial relations development in the Federal Republic of Germany; many erudite studies have been conducted by PhD thesis from the English speaking part of the globe applying the Anglo-Saxon frame of reference. However, the opposite has not been quite the case; the Anglo-Saxon conceptual framework for industrial relations has not found great favour with German social scientists. This is the consequence of industrial relations as a concept having no semantic definition in the German language, the issues being raised under sociology, labour history and labour law. This in turn raises the contours of the significance of language in the methodologies and understanding of research of nations, or indeed international, comparative and cross- cultural oriented studies.[3]
International
The international dimension has been described for International HRM by Lazarova et al. (2008: 1995) as follows:
“…..International HRM can be conceptualized as a field of enquiry dedicated to charting the autonomy of HRM in the MNC and the unearthing of the HRM strategies, systems and practices pursued in the context of internalization. In this trajectory, it is recognised that the ever-increasing complexity and uncertainty in which MNCs operate creates a unique set of organizational, coordination and managerial issues for the managers of these MNCs. Central among these is the management of employees on a global scale.”
The definition is narrow as it relates to MNCs but it centres on both the global paradigm and the critical role of employees. The objective of international research in HRM is to gain an insight in, for example, the managerial practices and systems, frequently observed in subsidiaries, of the target country. Industrial relations have also accumulated a considerable corpus of research findings from international focused studies; trade union structures, employer’s associations, the role of the state and the mechanism of collective bargaining are some examples.
International industrial relations research was initially driven by the Dunlop (1993) conceptual model of industrial relations systems; a model which has undergone continuous adaptation and evolution, and was used extensively in the Anglo-Saxon world. The basic premise of the systems model, that is an interdependent industrial relations systems where the actors determine rules, the output of the system, which then modifies the next set of rules, still has validity. The major evolution of the systems approach was the recognition of an increasing number of endogenous and exogenous factors. This paper would argue that an adapted systems model is still a valuable tool in the analysis of some nations; transformation economies, such as those of Eastern Europe, or emerging economies, such as Nigeria, are examples.
However, potential postgraduate research in industrial relations can also draw on the systems theory described by Niklas Luhmann; a conceptual framework sparingly used in Anglo-Saxon based research, partly because of the difficulties in translating his works. The core of Luhmann’s (1984) social systems theory is the role and theory of communication and communication constructs individual systems; and society is the most encompassing social system. There are few studies in the field of industrial relations which have drawn on the complex ideas of Luhmann and it illustrates the advantage that might be gained through the exercise of joint research supervision.
Comparative
Industrial relations systems research was a clear precursor of the comparative mode of enquiry which is, of course, intimately linked, and overlapping, with the international research procedure. Comparative studies, based on the belief that the study of processes, institutions and systems in a comparative context are extremely valuable, have a long tradition, and have increased as globalisation and the search for international competitive advantages by nations and enterprises have become central issues. An additional driver towards comparative studies, not only in industrial relations but also in the managerial and business domain, has been the evolution of new areas of economic significance, from individual nation states to regional economic amalgamations.