Papers by Masataka Murasawa
Humanities, May 26, 2014
As universities in Japan gain institutional autonomy in managing internal organizations, independ... more As universities in Japan gain institutional autonomy in managing internal organizations, independent of governmental control as a result of deregulation and decentralizing reforms, it is becoming increasingly important that the executives and administrators of each institution demonstrate clear and strategic vision and ideas to external stakeholders, in order to maintain financially robust operations and attractiveness of their institutions. This paper considers whether and how the self-image, mission, and vision of universities are perceived and internalized by the management of Japanese universities and empirically examines the determinants of shaping such individual perceptions. The result of our descriptive analysis indicates that the recent government policy to internationalize domestic universities has not shown much progress in the view of university executives in Japan. An increasing emphasis on the roles of serving local needs in research and teaching is rather pursued by these universities. Individual perceptions among Japanese university executives with regard to the missions and functional roles to be played by their institutions are influenced by managerial rank as well as the field of their academic training. A multiple regression analysis reveals that the economy of scale brought out by an expanded undergraduate student enrollment gradually slows down and decelerate executive perceptions, with regard to establishing a globally recognized status in research and teaching. Moreover, Japanese universities with a small proportion of graduate student enrollment, likely opted out from competitions for gaining a greater respect in the global community of higher education between 2005 and 2012. Finally, the management in universities granted with the same amount of external research funds in both studied years responded more passively in 2012 than did in 2005 on the self-assessment of whether having established a status as a global knowledge base.
The CSHE Research and Occasional Paper Series (ROPS) , Dec 18, 2013
In pursuit of enhanced employability of university graduates, along with their increased mobility... more In pursuit of enhanced employability of university graduates, along with their increased mobility in a rapidly globalizing economy, colleges and universities in the world today participate in regional alliances and partnerships in which shared targets with mutually recognized degrees and curricula are sought across boundaries through transnational higher education policies. The Bologna Process is certainly exemplified as one of the most important multilateral efforts in the recent history of higher education, in establishing such a system of quality assurance within the European Higher Education Area. Although the member states of the Bologna Process endeavor to meet the common benchmarks on the preset assessment criteria, the speed of policy implementation is found to widely vary across the participating countries. This paper attempts to identify the sources of discrepancies in achieving the common policy targets among the member states and explore in particular the extent to which varying stages of socio-economic as well as political development, along with indigenous ethnic and linguistic complexities, affect the robust progress of implementing multilateral higher education policies. Our findings generally suggest significant impacts of these indigenous factors.
The CSHE Research and Occasional Paper Series (ROPS) , Feb 2013
The increasingly competitive and globalizing environment of today’s higher education market has c... more The increasingly competitive and globalizing environment of today’s higher education market has compelled many colleges and universities around the world to revamp their academic programs and organizational structures by responsively addressing various contemporary issues raised by internal as well as external stakeholders. It is no exception that Japanese colleges and universities have gone through a period of dramatic transition over the last decade under considerable pressure and influence of the central government’s stringent policy mandates. Although the government-led reforms have intended to support the domestic institutions of higher education in gaining a competitive edge and assuring the quality of teaching and research, a series of reform attempts are documented to have increased the workload of Japanese professors tremendously, while shifting their work balance from teaching- and research-oriented activities towards more administrative or service-related tasks. It is a shared concern that the excessive workload of administrative responsibilities on professors deteriorates the quality of student instruction　and research productivity delivered by the academic staff. This study focuses on the amount of time spent by the faculty on administrative tasks and examines how their workload is influenced by the organizational scale and composition of supporting staff members as well as faculty colleagues. Our finding suggests that a mere increase of support staff would not necessarily reduce the faculty time spent on administrative or service-related tasks in Japanese universities. An increase in employment of part-time administrative assistants per se could indeed add heavier burdens on professors, due to their growing responsibilities in managing the larger scale of their organizations. Further simulation results demonstrate that the faculty workload in administrative tasks would most effectively be alleviated with the support from research assistants, provided that the same budgetary constraint is assigned to the organizational unit.
Higher Education, 2002
Japanese universities have beentightly controlled by the Ministry of Educationand it has often be... more Japanese universities have beentightly controlled by the Ministry of Educationand it has often been pointed out that theirautonomy has been ambiguous. In the late 1990s,however, the Japanese government started thedebate about introducing an IndependentAdministrative Institution system in order toderegulate its authority and to make therelationship between the government andnational universities clear. If this systemwere actually introduced, universities in Japanwould not only enjoy a great amount ofautonomy, but would also face financialproblems. The reality is unclear so far, butsome national universities have already startedto reform themselves radically in preparationfor the introduction.
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Papers by Masataka Murasawa