The Application of the Chinese Sense of “Balance” to Agreements Signed Between Chinese and Foreign Institutions in the Chinese Higher Education Sector: Adding Depth to a Popular Cultural Concept

The Chinese sense of “balance” has been widely researched in the literature from several perspectives including culture (where it has been traced back to Confucian, neo-Confucian and Taoist roots), and business and market entry (where it has been linked to issues such as the development of trust, relationship building, and guanxi between foreign companies and Chinese partners). However, far less attention has been placed on how this sense of balance (in its various forms) actually, and specifically, affects the structure and process of undertaking strategic alliance activities between Chinese and foreign companies. This paper deals with this issue by examining agreements and associated activities undertaken between 206 Chinese universities and foreign education partners to identify whether there is any specific sense of balance between the two sides. The paper notes that successful agreements and alliances do reflect a tangible sense of balance in the way the agreements were structured and in terms of the processes used to implement and undertake associated activities. The value of the paper is that it notes that foreign universities and their Chinese partners need to organise and undertake balanced alliances in the Chinese strategic alliance context. The fact that all respondents indicated that balanced alliances were a key to success makes this observation even more useful. This paper, therefore, adds the concept of balance to the literature of strategic alliance in the higher educational field, at least in China.