Motivations behind internationalisation in higher education: A suggested model of international strategy design

The M4O model developed by Ayoubi (2006, 2008) stands for: Motivations for Objectives, Organizations, Obstacles, and Outcomes of international partnerships in universities. This study highlights in details the first dimension of the M4O approach for studying partnerships which is motivations behind partnerships in universities. In terms of internationalization strategy design at universities, unlike previous studies, this study looks at the motivations behind internationalization at universities from internal and external pint of view. On the first hand, the ‘internal’ motivations can be represented by two dimensions: ‘academic departmental motivations’ and ‘university level institutional motivations’. On the other hand, the ‘external’ motivations are those which are related to partner and market circumstances. The importance of the three dimensions (market level, university level and faculty level), in terms of participation in internationalization strategy design identifies, eight types of strategy which are: Corporate Strategy, Marketized Strategy, Centralized Marketized Strategy, Collective Strategy, Centralized Strategy, Decentralized Strategy, Declined Strategy, and Decentralized Marketized Strategy. With different loads from each dimension of the above three dimensions, the study would contribute to the theory internationalization management and practice. Based on different levels of internationalization practices, international managers at universities would be able to allocate their university international strategy within one of the previous eight blocks, and to investigate the fit between business level strategy and the corporate strategy of their universities. On the theory level, internationalisation strategy researchers would have a tool to explore later, not at university level, but also at business level.