Costs, and Effectiveness: Resources for the Process of Internationalization of an Higher Education Institution

The internationalization of higher education is implemented through several strategies and institutions use those expected to contribute the most to meet their missional objectives (Di Maria, 2019). Under this context, it would be useful to know how higher education institutions identify all the resources available from internal and external sources and their related cost (Hudzik & Stohl, 2012; Hudzik, 2015a). In this briefing paper, using literature about agglomeration economies, resource-based theory, and from the internationalization field, I show that it is not possible to classify the resources for internationalization according to cost and effectiveness. Instead, I suggest that it is possible to know how the strategies can be cost effective. Specifically, I describe that when the institutional commitment to the internationalization process is high, there is space and time to properly identify and allocate existing resources and services to meet institutional targets related to internationalization. I recommend assessing the effectiveness as the extent to which higher education institutions (HEI) use their capacity for internationalization. A better understanding of this helps HEIs allocate appropriate resources and mitigate potential negative results.