| The independent college is a new school operational mode of higher education in China dated back in1990’s. Since then, independent colleges have become a unique but indispensable component of the higher education systems in China. Nowadays,311independent colleges are under operation, which constitutes an important phenomenon deserving further academic rigorous studies. Firstly, the existing uncertainties with the developmental mode of independent colleges call for theoretical clarifications and investigations in order to lay a solid ground for its future growth. Secondly, while independent college is on its own crossroad, such research may provide top-down practical steering guidelines and implications in solving the developmental dilemma with independent colleges.Historically, independent colleges have gone through several stages in the development; meanwhile, the growth of the independent colleges has shown complicated internal transformations from the civilian-run colleges, and state-owned and civilian-run secondary colleges. The counterpart of the independent college has been rooted in the higher education systems in America, France, Japan India, etc. In China, the emergence and advance of the independent college has been due to the following reasons:Externally, the overall opening-up environment has largely broadened the landscape for the reform on the higher educational systems of China. It is the ideological relaxation in China that makes the western theories and practice of education available for the reform of the higher educational systems of China. Internally, the overall marketing reform and rapid economic growth in China has largely activated people’s demands for quality education and educational resources. As people are getting wealthy, China has never been so eager for quality education. All these factors as well as civil activities have contributed to the emergence and advance of independent colleges in China. However, a review of independent colleges in China has revealed that, due to the lack of strategic investigations and planning at the governmental level, the operational mode of independent colleges in China has essentially been built upon the mixed inquiries for capital profit, self-development, and grassroots demands for quality education. At the certain level, this has led independent colleges to a miserable situation lacking strategic planning and administration in a long term. Therefore, based on the principles and theories of strategic administration, the purpose of this dissertation is to reports the author’s theoretical investigations and findings on the independent college from a perspective "governmental strategy." For this purpose, the dissertation consists of three sections, each of which includes several chapters focusing particular research topics. Section1consists of Chapter one and two that introduce the research question and major theories that lays a practical and theoretical foundation for the research. Section2consists of Chapter three, four, five and six. These chapters constitute the core of the dissertation research, and report the author’s systematic investigations of the current situation of the independent college, the analysis of external and internal strategic factors with independent college, and its core value, missions, and objectives. Section3. Chapter seven, provides a theoretical summary of the dissertation research discussing the theoretical and practical significance of the preceding strategic analysis of the independent college. The future developmental avenues of the independent college are proposed in this section. A brief overview of the three sections is summarized as follows.Section1(Chapter one and Chapter two):Chapter1goes straightforward and outlines the need for the strategic investigations of the independent college:(1) the needs for the systematic scientific examinations on the independent college based on the changing direction with the policies;(2) the accurate positioning of the educational nature and missions with the independent college; and (3) the strategic needs of the independent college for top-down management and directing. This section also provides a literature review of existing research in the independent college, based on which the research background of this dissertation is laid out. For example, studies on macroscopic educational policies at both state and private-owned education systems provide useful viewpoints for this research, and help systematically analyze the value and processes of policy making with the independent college. Also in this section, case studies on strategic patterns, positioning, and choices are performed on the private and independent colleges. These studies cited a comprehensive body of current research, and constitute the major literature source for the dissertation. The systematic collection, review, and examination of the literature body reveal that the theoretical investigations in the independent collage are still lacking, which confirms the necessity of this study. In this dissertation, the author’s review and interpretations of the processes and practice of policy making in the independent college is based on the belief that policy making and its driving forces play a key role in the development of the independent college; Meanwhile, the author also realizes that the public policies indeed lay the solid ground for the "governmental strategy" of the independent college. Therefore, the author recognizes that, due to the current shortage of strategic examination of the independent college, the research provides a timely testimony for the significance of policy research from the perceptive of governmental strategy. Chapter two outlines the theoretical base for the strategic investigations of the independent college from a perspective of the traditional private strategies. Among them,(1) The WHY addresses the question regarding the necessity of strategic investigation on the independent college;(2) the WHAT addresses the theoretical foundations on which the strategic investigations can be performed;(3) The HOW provides the theoretical roadmap to perform the strategic investigations; and (4) the WHERE provides the specific aspects that the strategic investigations should focus on. The theoretical options for the strategic investigations of the independent college demonstrate the inevitability that the learning school evolves into the design school, and the extent to which the independent college was adapted into its external environment:the reasoning of the strategic investigations of the independent school, presenting the primary situation with the analytical paradigms of the design school, and the improvements and enhancements on the paradigms; the main focus of the strategic investigations of the independent school, providing the investigations of the external environmental factors, internal drives, values and missions, and the analytical framework for political supporting of the investigations.Section2(Chapter3,4,5, and6):Chapter three reports a three-dimensional base-its history, current situation, and characteristics-on which the strategic investigations can be performed on the independent college. From the proposed perspective, the research divides the emergence and advance of the independent college into five phases:Emerging, Evolving, Struggling, Adjusting, and Stabilizing. The current situation and developmental difficulties are examined to pave a practical foundation for the future research. The empirical examination of this section is conducted based on the data gathered from two major sources. One is the "official data" that was sampled by Jiangsu Educational Evaluation in2010from22independent colleges; the other is the "unofficial data" obtained from the quantitative and qualitative surveys by the author through questionnaires, and telephone and E-mail interviews. The empirical examination of this chapter provides the understanding of the current situation that the independent college is facing, and raises two issues that the independent college should carefully address in course of its growth:One issue regards its policy making background and social evaluation; the other regards the characterization of so-called "independence" of the independent college as a particular unique paradigm of higher education. Chapter4,5, and6constitute the core of the strategic investigations of the research on the independent college. Among them. Chapter4discusses external factors that may potentially influence the growth of the independent college, sach as social economic background, lessons and experience from other nations. calls for the reform in higher educational systems, and a series of factors associated with governmental policy making. Chapter5examines the internal driving forces that may influence the growth of the independent college in terms of its developmental advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the independent college has capacity to provide educational resources and fund its development with solid financial sources; the disadvantage is associated with the degree of its independence, which, as Marxism indicates, implicates a certain level of alienation that should be addressed properly in order to secure its unique developmental advantages and continuous growth in the long term-Chapter6provides a description of the value, missions, and prospect of the independent college. Three value chains of the independent college are examined and discussed in the chapter:the value heritage chain, the development chain of higher education, and citizen training chain. From the perspective of the value and mission of the independent college, value, validity, and effectiveness constitute the three dimensions of strategic investigations on the independent college. This chapter examines several important value issues of the independent college from the value chain perspective. From a philosophic perspective, this chapter comments and discusses on the premise of the independent college regarding its primary ideology such as multi innovations, cultural inheritance, marketing ethics, and educational fairness.Section three (Chapter seven) provides the author’s theoretical interpretations of the course of policy making in the independent college from the perspective of the policy making theory and game theory. While the development of the independent college is still brief and under the construction, it deserves the positive objective historical examination. The dissertation research draws a very solid conclusion based on the multi-dimensional analysis of civil education systems, private higher education systems, educational reforms in China, and patterns of higher education in China. This chapter turns to gaming theory and policy-making process as the theoretical foundations, and demonstrates the policy-making situations of the independent college and the gaming positioning of the various stakeholders involved. This constitutes the base for the independent college to make its strategic decisions. Therefore, the chapter further suggests the essential needs for strategic change, positioning, and supporting, which is the essential base for the independent college to gain strategic advantage into a brand new virtuous development.The purpose of the dissertation is to set a strategic position for the independent college, based on which a deeper understanding can be built of the emergence, evolvement, advance, positioning, and future avenues of the independent college. Constrained by the author’s knowledge and the length of the research, the proposed strategies and policies in this dissertation may need future research to validate and elaborate. However, it is the author’s hope that the strategic examination on the independent college contribute to theory building and practical guidelines for research and practice of the independent college. |
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