Home institutions’ duty of care towards branch campus staff

Transnational higher education (TNHE) can be beneficial for universities seeking to diversify their income streams and extend their international reach.

These transnational partnerships often transpire when a ‘home’ institution from the Global North works with a partner from the Global South to jointly establish an overseas ‘international campus’ in the latter’s territory. The arrangement is usually that these international campuses are locally managed, owing in many cases to legislative restrictions, which can lead to several challenges.

The local management of the international campus, by people who may not have experience of working in higher education, can often be different to the management and employment practices of the home campus. It is especially problematic when expatriate academics employed at the international campus, usually hailing from the Global North, expect alignment between operations at the international and home campuses, especially if this is their first experience of employment overseas.

It can be a particularly jarring experience for academics who witness such incongruities first-hand if their expectations were not initially managed at the point of recruitment and job offer.

More troubling than unmet expectations can be instances of unethical employment practices at the international campus, which the home campus may distance itself from, leaning on the fact that employment is a local issue and any problems should therefore be locally resolved.

Poor employment practices, so-called toxic workplace cultures, lack of adjustment support and underdeveloped infrastructure can lead to workplace challenges and consequently poor well-being for expatriate academics, and inevitably contribute to the high turnover rates often witnessed at international campuses.

Duty of care

The home campus needs to recognise that, just as corporations cannot be absolved of issues along their supply chain, the home campus needs to be mindful of the operations of the international campus and the situation for staff working there.

One way for the home campus to meet its duty of care in this respect and to realise its social responsibility, is to cross-fertilise effective human resource practices, which tend to be substandard in developing nations. Doing so can help not only to safeguard employee well-being, but also reduce turnover rates and protect the home institution from reputational damage, both of which can be costly. It can also support the transition, socialisation and development of staff.

Initially, managing expectations at the stage of recruitment and selection is important. Many expatriate academics from the Global North may not be aware that an international campus’s operations are distinct from those of the home campus. In fact, they may come to believe that because the international campus ‘belongs’ to the home campus (at least this is how it tends to be marketed), it operates in very similar ways.

When they start their role, they may be surprised and frustrated by the reduced autonomy and close monitoring (even micromanagement) of staff, which may be something they are not typically accustomed to. The international campus therefore needs to be transparent about any differences in operation between the two campuses, while the home campus needs to do more than simply approving hiring decisions and must oversee this process.

Male academics may be more likely to work abroad and this can impact the organisational culture and potentially lead to a patriarchal culture at the international campus. Effective human resources policies that focus on promoting female representation, such as through suitable maternity or paternity leave provision, as well as suitable family accommodation, can be helpful in facilitating the recruitment and adjustment and support of female academics and their families.

Power imbalance

Staff at international campuses tend to perceive the home campus as embodying a top-down and superior position. This can translate into a power imbalance for local academics when co-developing and delivering the curriculum with their home campus academic counterparts. This can undermine local equivalence and promote compliance with, as opposed to enhancement of, quality standards in teaching.

To address this, the leadership staff employed by the home campus to work at the international campus and charged with overseeing its academic functioning, can play a vital role in facilitating links between the two campuses. They need to be cognisant of not allying themselves with their employer (ie, the home campus), and instead work to become bilaterally recognised by both campuses.

Providing greater power to such leaders can also be helpful in allowing them to intervene to resolve problems that may arise at a local level, such as instances of unethical workplace practices.

An infrastructure based on shared international services based at the home campus can also be useful in overseeing open communication channels between both campuses. This can also provide an effective mechanism for expressing dissent. For instance, should local academics have an issue at the international campus which cannot be resolved, there should be a way for this to be escalated to the home campus for mediation and resolution.

Parity in facilities and services

Finally, while the international campus tends to exist primarily to teach students and provide degree certificates from an established Western brand, the home campus needs to be careful that its international campus does not merely become a certificate factory.

Instead, greater efforts are needed to improve the provision of facilities and services at the international campus (such as academic support, accommodation and recreational facilities), similar to the efforts extended for the home campus, especially as students at the former tend to be paying at least as much, if not more, than students at the latter.

Alongside teaching, a parallel culture of research needs to be nurtured at the international campus. There is evidence that supporting both a research and student focus can help to foster the success of international campuses.

Dr Nishat Babu is a lecturer (assistant professor) and chartered psychologist based at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. Her research adopts a psychological lens to critically examine the dynamics of (in)effective leadership, and their implications for individual well-being and performance. She also explores how micro-level social responsibility, shaped by individual values and behaviours, can contribute to addressing broader societal challenges. Her work bridges theory and practice, with the aim of promoting healthier, more ethical organisational environments.

This article is based on her journal article, “Internationalisation at the expense of employment practices? Rethinking duty of care in transnational higher education”.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.