Management Of Foreign Teachers At Universities And Colleges In Ningbo As A Special Form Of Human Resources

As the urgent need of internationalization in the economic, cultural, and scientific domains ofChina, the recruitment of foreign teachers as a form of human resources has recently received moreand more attention from Chinese government and researchers. Foreign teachers have beenplaying an important role in, and having an indelible contribution to, the socioeconomic andcultural development of China. Heterogeneity in culture, education background, language, andlifestyle of foreign teachers leads to the uniqueness of the management of foreign teachers.Furthermore, policies for the recruitment of foreign teachers in China are immature yet, andrelevant studies on the management of foreign teachers are in an initial stage. However, driven bythe recent economic prosperity of China, efficacious management of foreign teachers as a specialform of human resources has been placed on agenda.The purpose of this research is to study how to efficaciously manage foreign teachersemployed by universities or colleges in China. The uniqueness of foreign teachers leads to thecomplexity of appropriate management of these human resources, and often requires support fromtheories and methods of human resources management. I conducted systematic literature review toidentify the progress that has been made in terms of the management of foreign teachers. Basedon theories and methodologies of human resource management, I focused this research on themanagement of foreign teachers while taking Ningbo City, China as a case study. The innovationof this study lies in the quantitative analysis and modeling of foreign teachers instead of qualitativedescription used in most previous studies. Survey data of foreign teachers in Ningbo City from2008to2010were collected and maintained in a digital database. The foreign teacher data wereanalyzed and discussed from different aspects, including nationality, academic degree, gender, andage. I developed a hedonic model based on artificial neural networks (ANN) to infer complexrelationships between the salary of foreign teachers and its influential factors. This ANN-basedhedonic model provides solid decision support for the efficacious management of foreign teachers.Qualitative survey results of foreign teachers in Ningbo Polytechnic were discussed whilecombining with analysis and modeling results at the level of Ningbo City. A series of issues wasidentified from three main aspects of the management of foreign teachers: recruitment, teaching,and living. Potential solutions for the resolution of these issues were proposed. In conclusion,flexible and systematic approaches are necessary to facilitate the management of foreign teachers.