The importance of gender equality in academic leadership has been widely recognised, yet this issue has been underexplored outside the Anglo‐Saxon countries. In this systematic review, we analysed 62 academic articles on women's academic leadership in Bangladesh (15), China (17) and Finland (30), published between 2000 and 2021. Our study revealed that research on gender‐related academic leadership is still underdeveloped across the three countries, particularly in Bangladesh. Most studies have focussed on the barriers that hinder women from attaining academic leaders' roles. Our review results highlight the role of societal and cultural factors that contribute to the differences in the levels of gender equality in university leadership across the three countries. However, the men‐dominated structure and culture in higher education pose the major obstacle for women in reaching leaders' positions in all three countries.

This paper intends to construct an analytical framework for understanding quality assurance in international joint programmes and to test it in a case analysis of a European–Chinese joint doctoral degree programme. The development of a quality assurance system for an international joint programme is understood as an institutionalization process of an organizational innovation, and the institutionalization process is also interpreted as a process of reconciling different institutional logics in the institutional changes. Based on these understandings, in the paper we construct an analytical framework by combining insights on conceptions of quality, the institutional logics perspective, and organizational innovation studies. The framework constructed aims mainly to tackle two issues: first, changes in multiple institutional logics underlying the quality assurance system, and second, factors facilitating/impeding the logics changes in the institutionalization process. In the empirical analysis, we take an international joint doctoral programme between a Chinese university and a Portuguese university as an example to analyse the initiation and implementation of a quality assurance system in the programme. While developing a system accommodating the traditions and needs of both sides is not an easy task, we found that several factors, namely profitability, compatibility and the agency of institutional entrepreneurs, may facilitate the process.

The expansion of doctoral education systems globally has spurred increased research into doctoral employment; however, there is a paucity of gender-based perspectives on the decisions of those who have entered the academic profession. This study delves into the career reflections of academics within the Chinese context, aiming to uncover gender differences in career choice of academic profession. Relying on the rational choice theory and a case study approach, the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 academics (21 men and 19 women) at a prominent Chinese research university. Data analysis revealed that participants’ inclination towards an academic profession emerged from a nuanced assessment of preferential and constraining factors. Preferences were rooted in the potential for personal growth, better employment prospects within academia, societal expectations and a sense of comfort with the academic milieu. Furthermore, the discord between university research training and non-academic sector demands, coupled with the potential for disruption in personal research interests, created barriers to entering non-academic fields. Notably, this study unveils significant gender-based differences, with career prospects, societal norms, resource availability and gender biases all varying markedly between male and female academics in the context of Chinese society. The study’s findings about these gendered career considerations suggest that traditional Chinese culture may exert a profound influence on career trajectories, which calls for further investigation into how such cultural factors shape gender-specific career paths within China.

To address a gap in understanding organizational level responses to complex shifts in international academic collaboration, we ask how a joint Sino-German college in Tongji University in Shanghai addressed challenges in international academic collaboration in one of its four key areas—mechanical engineering—from 2019 to 2024. Grounded in institutional theory and using a case study research design, supported by data from 22 interviews, over 70 documents, and fieldwork, we demonstrate that the challenges arose from the complexity of multiple logics imposed on the college by its Chinese and German actors. Our analysis revealed that since 2019, academic engagement between Germany and China faced increased costs and bureaucratic difficulties, exacerbated, but not caused, by a changing political relationship between the two countries. We further explored the organizational attempts to overcome these challenges as both German and Chinese actors leverage differences to benefit the joint organization. The college integrated its mechanical engineering curriculum more closely into its host university, while maintaining its coordinating role as a link to Germany. It emphasized newly launched small research centres, a new doctoral school, research into the green energy transition, new industry partnerships, and education in intercultural competencies. This study provides timely insights into how international academic organizations navigate complex environments and offers implications for future research on internationalization, particularly on Sino-foreign joint academic organizations.