抄録
As the internationalization of universities becomes more complex and diverse, the professional development of senior international officers has become an important issue. The purpose of this article is to examine the development of human resources in the internationalization management of Japanese universities through an understanding of the profile of senior international officers and the reasons for their appointment. In particular, it addresses the factors which affect the appointment of senior international officers in order to discuss future challenges and prospects for the development of professional staff in charge of university internationalization. Data from a related survey of senior international officers in Japan was analysed in order to consider the research questions.
The analysis uses the framework of career path patterns of senior international officers in the US put forward by Raby & Valeau (2021). In the 1970s and 1980s, it was the norm in the US for presidents and other senior managers to designate individuals as senior international officers regardless of their interests or prior experience, in what Raby & Valeau term “unintentional” appointments. However, since the 2000s, as the management of university internationalisation has become more sophisticated, there has been an increase in the number of “intentional” appointments in which candidates for such positions are required to have gained the relevant experience and expertise. In this paper, the researcher classified respondents to the Japanese survey into “unintentional” and “intentional” patterns of appointment before conducting cross tabulation and multivariate analysis to examine the impact of various factors thought to influence motives for appointment.
The results revealed the following findings. First, there was a relationship between
the presence or absence of experience working in the international education field prior to assuming a senior international officer position and motives for assuming the position. In particular, in the age group of 61 years and above, those who had experience in the field of international education prior to their appointment as senior international officers were more likely to adduce intentional factors in their appointment to the position. However, as there was no such clear difference in the 51-60 age group, a binomial logistic regression analysis was conducted which showed a negative effect for intentional factors among this age group. This result confirms that senior international officers in Japan tend to be appointed in their 50s for external reasons, such as designation by their superiors. Secondly, the more experience a person has in the field of international education prior to their appointment as a senior international officer, the greater the intentional motivation for the appointment. The results led to the conclusion that in order to increase the number of intentional appointments of senior international officers who support the advancement of internationalization management, it is important to establish a concrete framework to systematically develop those who begin to gain experience in the field of international education at a relatively young age as candidates for future senior management positions, as well as to nurture an organizational culture that supports such a framework.
