Legitimacy in Cross-Border Higher Education

Abstract

When colleges and universities set up outposts such as international branch campuses (IBCs) in foreign countries, the literature suggests that the success of that outpost can be tied to its ability to build its own legitimacy. This article investigates the process of legitimacy building by IBCs through identifying who IBCs view as their salient stakeholders and analyzing how IBCs legitimize their international presence to those stakeholders in the home country, host country, regional and global environments. Data are drawn from 45 branch campus mission statements collected from university websites. Findings indicate that IBCs embrace a global identity to legitimize themselves to both home country and host country stakeholders. Orientation to the IBC’s home country is utilized to signify quality and indicate the brand of education offered in the host country, whereas orientation to the host country is framed as furthering host country development. The findings suggest that there may be a lack of deep integration of the internationalization experience into IBC curricula and the home campus’s organizational learning. Furthermore, some IBCs have not prioritized local development needs in the host country.