Strategic Management of Internationalisation Processes: Problems and Options

In the framework of their first SOCRATES/ERASMUS applications in1996, institutions of higher education in Europe were asked toformulate and submit a European Policy Statement (EPS) expressingthe managerial and strategic thrust of their European goals andactivities for which they wanted to receive support. As this wasa new exercise for many institutions, especially from countries inwhich mission statements are not the rule, the resulting EPSs oftencontained a number of inconsistencies with regard to institutionalstrategies and policies and with regard to the relationship betweeninstitutional and European goals and policies. The contributiondiscusses typical problems of the strategic management ofinternationalisation processes at higher education institutionsby presenting results of an analysis of these EPSs. It also drawssome conclusions regarding implications for future developments inthe context of institutional management of change and the conceptof the learning organisation.