The post-industrialized world has reached the vanguard of the knowledge based society. There the creation of knowledge and delivering of education have become a pivotal asset. In the era of worldwide integration of goods, services, and people, higher education organizations today heavily depend upon the international interaction of individuals and the exchange of information. Higher education organizations always maintained international relations, globalization, however, increased the size, scope and intensity in an unprecedented way. These developments introduced a new paradigm of competition for resources in the field of higher education. It causes additional demands and expectations vis-à-vis higher education organizations which they have to address in one way or the other. This research project investigates one of the consequences, the phenomenon of a rising number of offshore organizations of universities. Literature of this field studies either globalization of higher education as a general topic and herewith examines policies and national strategies or it studies cases of offshore organizations stressing the cultural normative aspect. Therefore, this work introduced institutional theory to combine the macro with the micro perspective which generates reliable explanations for raised questions in that field. The thesis discusses the topic along three main questions: (1) What are the underlying institutional logics which shape the field of transnational higher education? (2) When does institutional complexity become evident and how are offshore organizations of universities responding to institutional complexity? (3) How can responses of offshore organizations be managed in a way that supports a favorable outcome of the operations? Collected data originate from a two year field research between 2013 and 2015. The study analyzes 25 offshore organizations of universities located in Singapore and surroundings with their parent organizations originally based in Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States of America. In total 40 semi-structured interviews were carried out with members of offshore organizations who have managerial responsibilities, which resulted in 42 hours of recorded audio material. Approximately 600 pages of transcribed interview tapes were analyzed to identify practices, assumptions, values, beliefs and rules. The analysis shows that there are six competing institutional logics which cause institutional complexity. Not only do they struggle for dominance they are also in conflict with each other. This means that following one script of appropriate behavior leads to denial of another one. Thus responses to these various demands and expectations are manifold. However, there are three organizational attributes which define the way how organizations are addressing institutional complexity. The manipulation of these three features allows the management to control the way how offshore organizations response to competing demands and expectations. As a result offshore organizations are able to align the response with the strategic intent of the operation.
