Curriculum internationalisation: a dynamic organisational change process
Internationalisation and diversity have become of high strategic relevance for higher education institutions worldwide. Meanwhile, internationalisation is often under attack in political and societal debates. The issue is that we do not yet fully understand how to make internationalisation and diversity valuable in a specific context. This is problematic because we live in an increasingly pluralistic, highly interconnected world. This PhD thesis focuses on how to work effectively and meaningfully with internationalisation and diversity in higher education study programs. Through a combination of case studies, interviews, and discourse analysis in a longitudinal design, this research investigates the role of academic staff and the impact of their disciplinary contexts, institutional strategies, and resource management. The four studies explore the usability of organisational change perspectives; a comprehensive framework connecting the context, content, and process, a dynamic resource-based view, and a duality perspective. These organisational change perspectives reveal the drivers and tensions that academics experience in their organisational contexts and provide new explanations and structured approaches. In short, this thesis emphasises the importance of building on drivers, strengths, and achievements, while acknowledging, appreciating, and accommodating the tensions regarding internationalisation and diversity, aiming to connect divergent perspectives and create new opportunities. As such, this research provides new evidence of how diversity and internationalisation can contribute to quality, sustainability and innovation, for higher education institutions and societies.
Franka van den Hende has worked on internationalisation and diversity as a scholar and practitioner in various roles at the University of Groningen since 1992.