Chinas Reform towards Practice-oriented Higher Education. Is the Transformation of Universities to Colleges a Success Story?

In a large-scale reform, 600 Chinese State universities are being transformed to practice-oriented universities of applied sciences. A change process of this size and scope is hardly implemented without any impediments. Resistance of teachers against the reform can be expected, since their traditional role is challenged. A purely top-down management approach to the reform thus seems to be not promising, hence the present study explores the determinants of teachers’ motivation to support or oppose the reform. We perform partial least squares structural equation modelling to analyse the relationship between different latent variables, representing both relevant aspects of teachers’ motivation and of the management approaches to the reform. Personal interest, as an intrinsic motivation turns out to be the most powerful predictor of the development of a supportive attitude. Management activities do not exhibit strong direct effects, while the different dimensions of individual motivation function as mediators that reinforce the influence of management activities on teachers attitudes towards the reform.