Exploring Institutional Culture and Its Impact on International Student Recruitment Capabilities

Abstract

This chapter compares how three institutions from three countries, Canada, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, use international student recruitment as an institutional capability. Institutional capability to recruit students from international markets is determined by a mix of national policy, internal cultures and institutional resources and capabilities. This chapter explores the complex nature of institutional operations in higher education institutions (HEIs) by considering the perspectives of senior leaders, administrators and international student recruiters and how they implement their international student recruitment plans while facing increasing competition and unstable government policies. The results show what is needed is for institutions to improve their institutional capabilities to respond to national policies and to adapt to the changing global landscape. It also discusses the importance of understanding highly localised, institutional culture and practice and how national policy is one dimension that shapes international student recruitment. International case study allows you to draw these conclusions and to examine how strategy and policy contexts shape individual institutional capability. Institutional context shows capabilities in international student recruitment practice are unique and institutional responses to policies and competition are based on their internal cultures. Institutional actors view government policy as the ‘playing field’ to achieve their institutional strategies; however, there is more to international student recruitment than merely national policies such as the ability to communicate and coordinate activities within institutions. This chapter highlights the importance of understanding the capabilities of the institutions themselves as they attempt to recruit students from international markets. This chapter reinforces the notion that it is not only what the policies say or do, but also how these policies are interpreted at the practice level that shapes international student recruitment.