Framing alternative policies to achieve university mission: a
case study of a Chinese regional university
Zhenping Zhang Haiyan Yan
Department DEMS, University of Palermo, Italy School of Management, Shanghai University of Intemational
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China Business and Economics, China
Postal address: Via Rocco Jemma 88, Palermo, Italy Postal address: Wenxiang Road 1900, Shanghai, China
Phone: 086-18510771265 Phone: 086-13761890328
Email:robi foxmail.com; Email: yanhelen@ 163.com;
Jiayin Qi Enzo Bivona
School of Management, Shanghai University of International +Department DEMS, University of Palermo, Italy
Business and Economics, China Postal address: Via Rocco Jemma 88, Palermo, Italy
Postal address: Wenxiang Road 1900, Shanghai, China Phone: 039-3384381446
Phone: 086-13911608278 Email: enzo.bivona@ unipa.it;
Email: gijiayin@ 139.com;
Keywords: University Mission, Incentive Project, Public Policy, Performance Measurement
Starting from 1995, China launched a series of incentive projects to steer the development of
universities towards expressed priorities (“211” in 1995, “985” in 1998 and “double first-rate” in
2017). These policies has formulated universities’ management strategy and generated fierce
competition among universities regarding both student enrollment and research productivity.
However, we found that the university in the aforementioned projects are always the same with
few exceptions (see Table 1), which replicate the so-called "success to successful" system archetype.
In this sense, what impact does these policies has on the development of universities, especially
the universities that are not selected in the incentive project? How should these universities cope
with the challenge to achieve university mission? University management is characterized by
multi-subjects, multi-objects and intense interactions among them, which is dynamic and long-
term in nature. Therefore, a Dynamic Performance Management perspective (Bianchi, 2016) is
adopted to frame the development of university and the impact of incentive project is evaluated.
At last, alternative polices are suggested for regional universities to achieve university mission.
Table 1 The Comparison of Universities Selected in Incentive Projects
Type of University/ Double 985 211 Other
Incentive project first-rate
First-rate University-Class A 36 36 36 0
First-rate University-Class B 6 3 6 0
First-rate Discipline University | 95 0 70 25
Non first-rate university 0 0 0 2777
A causal loop diagram can be seen in Figure 1. There are three sub-systems in the diagram: teaching,
research and MBA training, which form a couple of reinforcing loops. In the MBA sub-system, an
increase of investment in MBA can add new MBA courses and activities, which can promote MBA
attractiveness. This helps to enroll more MBA students, thus more MBA tuition to improve liquidity
(see R1). Similarly, R2 is driven by investment in teaching and R3 is driven by investment in research.
However, there is a trade-off between teaching and research. The increase of students’ courses
and activities may increase the teaching pressure, which undermines the research productivity.
Lower research productivity leads to less published papers and citations, which in turn reduces the
liquidity to be invested in teaching (see B1). An insight model is built based on causal loop diagram
and the framework of Dynamic Performance Management (see Figure 2).
‘Investment in
an Research
Ligiciiy——— 2
A + Tavestment in Ars) Training And
2 Teaching Research Support
MBA Tuition Investment in +
“a Students Ci «.
+ & ay R2 Pond Activities Tedthing Pressure
Enrolled MBA Research
MBA Courses and + esear]
Shalens pecs Productivity
Students Abily BL
¥
MBA
¥
An Employment Rate
Pulished Papers and
Citations
%
4
School Image
Figure 1 Causal Loop Diagram of School of Management in SUIBE
Dynamic Performance Management is applied to a case study of a Chinese regional university.
Based on the insight model, we found that the incentive projects prevent regional university from
achieving mission by undermining the strategic resources of regional university, in particular the
allocated resources and university image. Alternative polices can be outlined for regional university
to cope with the challenge. On one hand, improving the efficiency of spending by making a balance
between teaching and research investment. On the other hand, seeking for new resources and
opportunities outside the public funding system.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91546121),
Major projects of National Social Science Foundation of China (16ZDA055), The Ministry of
education of Humanities and Social Science project(16YJA630011)
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Review, 14(1), 69-84.
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