Term of Award

Spring 2012

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Committee Chair

Teri Denlea Melton

Committee Member 1

Georj Lewis

Committee Member 2

Russell Mays

Abstract

Campus internationalization is increasingly becoming a profitable strategy used by colleges and universities to counteract the transformative effects of globalization on higher education. As institutions begin to rely more heavily on this dimension of their organizational programming, it becomes essential that they engage in the best possible planning practices to ensure a systematic and sustainable initiative. Failure to plan effectively might derail expectations and compromise institutional viability. The literature investigation of this study suggests that organizational intentionality might be a useful strategy for systemic internationalization planning. The purpose of this mixed-methods study, therefore, was to determine how organizational intentionality has impacted successful internationalization at public research universities in the United States. This investigation was framed on the three stages of the theory of strategic intent, which postulates the importance of leadership intentionality in creating a vision, committing stakeholders to its accomplishment, and inspiring practice toward realization. Based on survey results from the study of seven public research universities in the Southeast region of the United States, outcomes of the first, quantitative, investigation indicated varying degrees of contribution of intentionality in the internationalization of higher education. Findings also uncovered the degree of contribution of intentionality in each of the three stages of strategic intent at each of the institutions. Secondly, results from the case study investigation conducted at the institution identified in the quantitative investigation as having the highest degree of contribution of intentionality in internationalization uncovered strategic planning as the strongest indicator of intentionality vis-a-vis internationalization. Additionally, leadership commitment, resource allocation, vision in planning, structure establishment, employee engagement, competencies establishment, creativity and experimentation, a systematic approach to internationalization, and the development of change agents emerged as best practices of intentionality in internationalization. The analysis of this study shows the association of each of these outcomes with the theory of strategic intent.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

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