| The year1998is critical for china’s management system of higher education to make breakthrough progress. In the following ten years, newly-established college (NEC) is burgeoning, opening a prelude to the process of china’s higher education. In terms of quantity, it accounts for30%of our regular undergraduate universities; In terms of layout, almost every prefecture-level city in most provinces has an undergraduate university. The emergence and development of NEC, gradually changing the ecological structure of higher education. However,"as beginning forms of objects, their shape must be ugly"; similarly, NEC is faced with most embarrassing situation in process of the rapid development:coping the old model without corresponding capital, urgently leaping development without enough supportive resources, pursuing "formal position" without deep integration......, some of NEC’s difficulties and problems are confined to the external environment; some are in the development progress. But, How to be in a good place and to develop an effective strategy is of primary consideration for NEC to try to get rid of most of the practical problems.From the ecology perspective, university can be seen as au nique biologieal population. Therefore, Interdisciplinary research can often find new and unique "academic landscape." Ecological niche provides a theoretical support and thinking way. As the concept of ecological niche is characterized by biological species’ utilization of resources and environmental variables, each species has its most competitive niche for survival in the long-term competition. Therefore, colleges’niche can be regarded as relatively favorable survival and development space as well as comparative and competitive advantages in the whole social environment and the higher education community, which is realized by actively interacting with social environment and other higher education community with its own natural resources as a condition. Actually, college is a typical fast-growing organism, with external environment providing opportunities for growth and internal conditions providing development insurance; each university is always adjusting itself in such growth and development, as well as optimizing its own status and function in higher education system, even social system. This is the process for colleges to seek their own niche. In other words, essence of college strategic management can be seen as understanding and grasping objective conditions and their own niche, and using relevant strategies to adjust their real niche to gradually close to its basic niche, i.e. niche strategic thinking. University’s growth and development characteristics determine its ecological niche a "relatively stable" niche, because seeking transformation and transition are their ultimate values. This is essence of university niche strategic management.Niche can bring development strategy for new-established colleges. There are two reasons:firstly, NEC’s two typical development states "low-level high-climbing and same-level tending to the same" indicates that these institutions have the salient features of "ecological dislocation and niche overlap" in the development process. In other words, niche theory and its basic idea apply to interpretation of newly-established strategic issues with a high degree of relevance; Secondly, because of impact of such various ecological factors as system dependence, policy control, resource allocation, concept of customs, cultural traditions, NEC’s strategic management are destined to a "what you want" static behavior. On the contrary, it must be a dynamic behavior with continuous exchange and conversion with environment and various stakeholders. Niche theory’s application to NEC’s strategic management reflects two aspects’accommodation, not only helping create a deep understanding of essence of NEC’s strategic management, but also has important methodological significance to enrich college strategic theory.The study is based on solving the question of "Newly-established colleges’niche strategy", with such colleges’strategic management process as the main line, following the dynamic research route of general to specific, static to dynamic. This paper’s college niche strategic analysis framework is based on niche theory and strategic management theory, fully analyzing relevant variables impacting strategic choice, systematically and objectively revealing NEC’s internal logic of niche strategy and implementation, scientifically and rationally exploring NEC niche strategy evaluation and control’s methods, expecting to provide new theoretical guidance for such colleges’developing strategies. Thesis is organized in the following pattern and contents:The niche strategic objective for the NEC can be described as follow:based on clearing their own mission and vision, according to the understanding of own strength change, development condition and the niche, universities use various strategies to coordinate the relationship between themselves and other links, select and expand their own fundamental niche continuously, so as to promote their actual niche continuously close to the fundamental niche, and achieve sustainable growth and development through facilitating niche transition. Therefore, it is a centre of gravity for the NEC’s strategy choice and formulation that how to construct niche reasonably and scientifically. The three dimensions of environmental, space and capacity respectively reflect the multi-dimensional feature of the niche of new universities from environment pattern, space-time location and evolvement trend, which constitute the content systems of NEC competition. It is an important basis for increasing the competitive advantages and making an effective strategic analysis that NEC should fully excavate the potential of all dimensions. Also, it is a basis for effective strategic choice that we should measure the niche breadth, niche overlap, niche trend, niche separation and niche-fitness. For this, under the guidance of the total strategy including the niche competition strategy, niche mobile strategy, niche symbiotic strategy, and niche co-evolution strategy, the paper poses a general option of NEC niche strategy: differentiation strategy reflecting niche misplaced, diversification strategy reflecting niche generalization, professional strategy reflecting niche specialized, value maintaining strategy reflecting niche protection, key factor control strategy reflecting niche value-added, local institutions growth strategy reflecting niche multi-dimensional overlapped and weakening and leap-forward development strategy reflecting niche non-balance.University niche strategy can not only promote the effective use of resources dimension, but also can promote effective reserve. The allocation of university ecological strategy resource must meet the essential nature of university ecology, which is heredity and variation, balance and imbalance, symbiosis and competition."Diachronic" and "synchronic" are the essential nature of the allocation of university niche strategy."Diachronic", actually is the different strategic direction in life cycle of the university;"Synchronic", actually is the relative stability in a specific phase of development. Based on perspective of organizational life cycle, from the period of start-up, growth, optimization and recession to examine the survival and development of NEC, the paper explores the organizational structure in different stages, which is in nature a new interpretation of the niche strategy plan and implementation of these universities. Based on this, the paper poses the choices of niche strategy implementation:niche separation strategy emphasis on dislocation development, niche specialization strategy focus on deep adaption, niche expansion strategy with development potential, niche symbiotic strategy establishing strategic alliances and niche promotion strategy reflecting collaborative innovation. Because cultural integration is the most important "soft" support variable of the development of new universities, the paper points out that these universities should adhere to the personality culture of mission, accept multiculture of harmony without sameness, advocate dynamic change culture of free devotion and shape collaborative culture of tolerance and open.Evaluate and adjust the niche is the only way in the process of strategic management position.Based on the measure model of university niche breadth, overlap and trend, the paper takes8NEC in Guangxi or example, makes a niche evaluation of the number of enrollment, graduates, students, faculty and full-time teachers from2006to2009, in order to verify the niche model constructed. On this basis, the paper further poses a comprehensive evaluation strategy of university niche, designs an index system including the "state"(teaching ability, research ability and social<space> service ability),"state of the interface"(university space management ability, university strategic management ability and university obtainly resources space ability), and "potential"(university innovation ability) at3levels and7dimensions, taking the NEC in Guangxi for example to.empirical test and analysis evaluation. Niche evaluation provides the corresponding theoretical and practical basis for niche regulation, given this, because of the dynamic relationship of niche, the paper explores the motives, objectives and mechanisms of university niche strategic control from the perspective of the relationship niche, makes relevant recommendations to the new universities that how to control the risk through ensuring the stability of the niche strategy, how to create an ecological environment from niche restoration and how to promote sustainable development by niche optimization. |
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