ABSTRACT
This research provides an analytical model of “organizational dilemma” by identifying five key players in the social environment of one cross-border joint-university (which are specifically partners, market, government, parents, and the general public) and five tensions embedded in the university (which are specifically tensions between cooperation and competition, between internationalization and localization, between government support and university autonomy, between parental participation and students’ independence, and between self-identification and social recognition). The ambivalent situation of cross-border joint-universities emerges from regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive challenges in complex social contexts, requiring cross-border joint-universities to apply different strategies to cope with institutional pressures, and bringing continuing challenges in organizational sustainability. By revisiting theories on cross-border higher education, this research highlights the importance of viewing social organization in a global framework of economy and polity, and of seeing the hidden inequality in educational cooperation endeavors. By revisiting theories on organization and environment, specifically institutional theories, this research elaborates how institution works in an organization through different carriers, and sheds light on the importance of agency.
