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The Hurdles to Being World Class: Narrative Analysis of the World-Class University Project in Korea

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Abstract

This study examines the Korean Government’s policy scheme of setting up the World-Class University (WCU) Project by investigating the perceptions of major actors, including WCU scholars and government officials. In-depth interviews were held with 18 WCU scholars and three government officials. Our findings suggest that the limits of the governmental scheme have marginalized the organizational capacity of the selected departments, and that most of the limits have stemmed from strong institutional pressure on the departments. In institutional environments, such as the governmental guidelines for micro-management, there is a conflict between regulation from the Government and universities. Moreover, harmful political dynamics between the Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology and other audit and finance-related governmental institutions have worked against the selected departments. Common observations throughout the study indicate that the objective of the project is not sufficiently focused on the global definition of the WCUs, and that the strategy and regulation of the project are some way from representing an optimal form of world-class work.

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Notes

  1. University organizations that have complete autonomy are also more flexible because they are not bound by cumbersome bureaucracies and externally imposed standards, notwithstanding the legitimate accountability mechanisms that bind them. As a result, they can manage their resources with agility and quickly respond to the demands of a rapidly changing global market (Salmi, 2009).

  2. Hereafter, what we mean by ‘institution’ is a well-established and structured pattern of behaviour of relationships that is accepted as a fundamental part of a culture, with ‘institutional environments’ characterized by the elaboration of rules and requirements to which individual organizations must conform in order to receive legitimacy and support (Scott and Meyer, 1983).

  3. Among the invited WCU scholars, there were nine Nobel laureates and three Field laureates. In addition, 13 were members of the National Academy of Engineering, 14 were members of the National Academy of Sciences, and 10 were members of the National Academy of the United States (KMEST, 2010b).

  4. DiMaggio and Powell (1991) identified the following mechanisms of institutional isomorphic change: (a) coercive isomorphism results when organizations are persuaded, forced, or coerced to change by other organizations on which they are dependent; (b) mimetic isomorphism is related to organizational uncertainty or ambiguity, which results in the imitation or mimicking of legitimate organizational structures in the institutional environment.

  5. The WCU Project is one of the major university reform agendas of the newly elected president, and the timeline of the project is exactly set for the duration of the Government.

  6. The most common issue was the salary level of the invited scholar. Although there is a governmental guideline to pay around 300 million KRW per year (KMEST, 2008), it was very hard to find any reference for individual universities, especially the national ones, paying almost three times more than the amount received by full professors of the universities.

  7. The significant indicators for the mid-term evaluation of the selected departments include SCI publications, domestic–foreign scholar joint publications, aggregate of impact factors published in top 10% SCI journals, number of Top 1% journal publications, and number of citations per person in SCI publication journals (KMEST, 2010a).

  8. Another indicator for the mid-term evaluation is comparison with other world-class departments of developed countries, including validity of selection of the relevant departments and the plan to catch up with them in terms of research (mostly publications and impact factors) and education (KMEST, 2010a).

  9. An international scholar receives a salary of 300 million KRW (approximately US$272,700) and an additional 100 million KRW (approximately US$90,900) for research per year (KMEST, 2008). According to a survey (http://www.kyosu.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=26096), the annual average salary of a full professor from Seoul National University amounts to 97,390,000 Korean won (approximately US$88,536).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, College of Education, Sangmyung University, 20 Hongji-mun 2-ro, Seoul, 110-743, Jongno-gu, South Korea

    Deok-Ho Jang

  2. Department of Lifelong Education, College of Social Sciences, Soongsil University, 369 Sangdo-ro, Seoul, 156-743, Dongjak-gu, South Korea

    Kiung Ryu

  3. Department of Education, College of Education, Hongik University, 94 Wowsan-ro, Seoul, 121-791, Mapo-gu, South Korea

    Pilnam Yi

  4. Department of English Language Education, Sangmyung University, 20 Hongji-mun 2-ro, Seoul, 110-743, Jongno-gu, South Korea

    Daniel A Craig

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Jang, DH., Ryu, K., Yi, P. et al. The Hurdles to Being World Class: Narrative Analysis of the World-Class University Project in Korea. High Educ Policy 29, 234–253 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2015.23

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