Research on Human Resource Management in Education Industry—A Case Study of SILC

Globalization is nowadays a powerful mega trend to drive the revolution of world tertiary education. It creates many opportunities for education institutions to integrate globalization into human resources management, including recruitment, training, appraisal and remuneration. This essay will develop a research on human resources management and propose several recommendations about talent management for managers in education industry, with the case of a Sino-foreign joint institution, SILC. Introduction Globalization is a force to reorganize the structure of world tertiary education. On the one hand, it promotes multi-national cooperation and makes it easier for people to study abroad [1]. On the other hand, the economic inflow generated by globalization in turn improves local educational quality, which in result attracts more overseas students [2]. Relevant data could help to justify the great impact that globalization brings to education industry, particularly in China. According to UNESCO, the number of international students hit 3.4 million in 2009, while 60% of the international students in the USA are from China [3]. SILC, as a Sino-foreign joint institution founded in 1994, is an appropriate research subject. It has welcomed more than 200 foreign students coming to China for high education and engaged in offering an all-English teaching and learning environment for both Chinese and international students here. Method This report is an empirical research that applies the integrated theory into practice methods. Therefore, besides second-hand materials, we conducted interview with both teachers and students in SILC. The interviewees cover eight teachers in all three majors in SILC, and the interview questions involve recruitment, training and development, appraisal, compensation and benefit. Problem Framing The theories of Human Resource Management (HRM) are implemented in every corporation including educational institutions. There are four main functions in HRM acquiring, training, appraising and compensating [4]. These four functions of HRM provide four practical dimensions for educational institution in faculty management. SILC, as an international business school, will undoubtedly face challenges of human resource management from acquiring, training, appraising and compensating. Talent Introduction The quality of business college graduates depends on the quality and international level of faculty to a large extent [5]. Zhang & Liu argues that introducing professors from abroad business colleges could bring new teaching model and increase paper publishing in international journals [6], which 620 could improve teaching quality and increase international reputation. However, the full-time foreign teachers account for 18.6% (29/156) and most of faculty members are Chinese who have earned degree in abroad or have some oversea learning experience merely. Therefore, from 2016, SILC have begun to try a new recruitment policy called co-recruitment, which recruits outstanding teachers in a global context and these teachers are hired by both SILC and UTS. This policy provides better salary and benefits for teachers, but also comes up with higher standards and requirement for teachers. In addition, career-oriented faculty recruiting, which encourages to hire entrepreneur as part-time professors, can bring cutting-edge theories and practices guidance for students [5]. For instance, the Management School of Shanghai Fudan University has recruited many famous domestic and overseas entrepreneurs as honorary professors or specially-appointed professors to rich business experience of faculty members [7]. In SILC, the number of professors from corporations is relatively less and most of teachers and professors is lack of business practices. Training and Development The outstanding faculty could be built from talent introduction and local teachers’ training mainly [7], which indicates that business colleges should introduce abroad talents and meantime strength the international training of local teachers. According to the survey results in SILC, all teachers interviewed mentioned that SILC provides some international training for them, including providing learning opportunities in UTS and others abroad universities, inviting some abroad scholars to do lectures and attending international conferences. Also, SILC provides financial supports to encourage teachers to participate in these trainings by claiming expenses and providing subsidies. In addition, Song argues that business colleges should formulate strategic faculty training and development policy [7]. Furthermore, Xu encourages business colleges to increase cooperation with international universities to improve faculty training [5]. However, the main abroad partner in SILC is UTS while the others are merely short-time exchange programs. Also, at UTS, the main learning style is attending lectures of teachers of UTS and only one Chinese teacher that was interviewed have taught students at UTS in 2015 summer exchange programs. These research results reflect that SILC does address the international training of faculty, but needs to provide broader and deeper training opportunities. Appraising System Establishing a comprehensive and effective appraising system is an essential method to improve faculty’s performance. Song reports that in the process of appraising [7], business colleges should not merely lay emphasis on education background, job title and academic achievement which are easy to qualify, but also need consider some comprehensive qualities that are hard to qualify, such as moral level and collective consciousness. Thus business colleges should consider these differentiations and set different appraising criteria [6]. In SILC, the performance of faculty is converted into 50 teach points in total. The three basic appraising aspects are teaching, scientific research and educating, accounting for 32, 8, and 10 teach points respectively, which has reflected that SILC puts much attention on academic achievements. According to interview results, although SILC will select the most popular teacher based on student assessment, this actually could generate little or even no effects on faculty appraising. Furthermore, Xu suggests that business colleges should combine teaching, scientific research and social development in appraising system, aiming to improving the practicability and sociality of academic research [5]. Some teachers in SILC do have business experiences, but this has not been listed in appraising criteria.