As the world has been increasingly globalized, the higher education sector is being shaped and transformed by internationalisation, which is identified as ‘one of the most powerful and pervasive forces at work within higher education around the world’ (Rumbley, Altbach, & Reisberg, 2012, p. 3). In the enactment of internationalisation, academic staff are seen as primary agents lying at the core of the faculty (Childress, 2010; Leask & Beelen, 2009; Proctor, 2015). Given academics’ crucial role in internationalisation implementation, the achievements of internationalisation is claimed to be constrained by the lack of academic staff’s involvement and expertise (Beelen, 2011; Childress, 2010; Leask & Beelen, 2009; Proctor, 2015; Stohl, 2007). Having said that, little research has addressed academics’ experiences in internationalisation (Proctor, 2015; Sanderson, 2011). Comparative studies on internationalisation in higher education in general and on staff capacity building in internationalisation in particular are even more barren. Therefore, my study aims to investigate the practices of academic staff’s engagement and capacity building in internationalisation across two different contexts, taking one university in each country as cases under study.
Australia and Vietnam are two good representatives because they provide contrastive rationales for internationalisation (internationalisation at ‘trade’ in Australia, as opposed to internationalisation for international integration and cooperation in Vietnam) and also their positions in the international higher education market (Australia as a major exporter of international education and Vietnam mainly as a receiver or importer) (Adams, Banks, & Olsen, 2011; De Wit & Adams, 2010; Thủ Tướng Chính Phủ, 2012; Tran, Marginson, & Nguyen, 2014). To that end, my research seeks to answer an overarching question “To what extent are academic staff engaged in the internationalisation of higher education and how can their engagement be enhanced?”. In particular, my research looks at academics’ activities of internationalisation, motivations, opportunities and support from their institutions, and their professional learning needs for better capacity in internationalisation.
In order to conceptualize the engagement of academic staff in their institution’s internationalisation agenda, this research draws on Sen’s Capability Approach (Sen, 1985, 1992, 1999), which is originally a moral framework for assessing human development. Consisting of three key concepts – functioning, capabilities, and agency, the Capability Approach emphasizes the understanding of capabilities and agency in evaluating a functioning. Seeing ‘capability’ as the opportunity or freedom a person actually has, Sen holds that capabilities “depend on the nature of social arrangements” (Sen 1999, p. 288) and that the agency aspect of a person is important in assessing “what a person can do in line with his or her conception of the good” (Sen 1985, p. 206). This research views academics’ engagement in internationalisation as an achieved ‘functioning’ and argues that their engagement depends on opportunities or constraints (capabilities) created by higher education institutions (social arrangements), and on academic staff’s agency in choice making and converting the given resources into functioning (engagement). The institutional conditions and arrangements, which are policies and practices, including leadership, resources, funding, professional development activities, etc. may create or reduce capabilities for academic staff in the internationalisation agenda. These capabilities give academics options, based on which they utilise their agency make decision to (dis)engage with the internationalisation process. From that perspective, examining the institution’s support structure and academics’ agency will reveal underpinning factors that facilitate or hinder academics’ engagement, then suggest how their capacity could be enhanced through capacity building practices, including professional learning activities for internationalisation. By large, the Capability Approach provides a conceptual lens to frame the research and interpret the factors influencing academics’ engagement in internationalisation.