The ‘Quantity’ and ‘Quality’ of Internationalization of the Faculties in the Top Universities in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea in the Case of Economics

Abstract

The 21st century will be the glorious era of Asian universities. This positive expectation for Asian universities has been already recognized because of the current increase in the number of Asian universities in QS World University Rankings. While China, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea have been successful in the rankings, Japan’s results have been, however, normally disappointing because Japanese universities are often very weak in one of the important ranking indicators, the international indicators. However, the International Faculty Index of the International Indicators focuses on nationalities of faculties. The paper in contrast suggests that internationalization of faculties should be measured by both the proportion of faculties who hold overseas PhDs (the ‘quantity’ of internationalization of faculties) and the proportion of faculties who possess PhDs from the world’s best universities (the quality of internationalization of faculties), in a certain university. The ‘quantity’ and ‘quality’ of internationalization of faculties in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are then examined in this paper in order to discover whether Japan is unsuccessful in the internationalization of its universities.