Higher education transitions: from an international to a global focus

For more than twenty years, Universities across the world have used Jane Knight’s concept of international universities as places where an effort was being made to integrate an international dimension into universities’ traditional purposes of teaching research and service (Knight 2004). The extent to which universities could demonstrate sufficient integration in these areas became a benchmark for university quality and international standing in the league tables (Taylor 2010; Foskett 2010). This paper tries to argue that the mere integration of international dimensions into the purposes and processes of the university is no longer a sufficient criterion for universities that have global ambitions. The emergence of the term global university is not coincidental. Rather it is a bold statement of intent and a means by which leading universities seek to create a niche for themselves and maintain privileged positions while standing out prominently in the crowded marketplace (Woodfield et al. 2009). In the business world, global industries emerged because they saw opportunities in multiple markets across the world which could be served essentially by the provision of a standard product ensuring the advantages of economies of scale, lower costs, faster production and distribution and cheaper marketing (Porter 1996). Examples of such global companies include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, Sony and Panasonic among others.