Policy Alignment, Institutional Strategies, and Collaboration Effectiveness in Sino‐Foreign Higher Education Collaboration: A PLS ‐ SEM Analysis

ABSTRACT The Internationalization of higher education has recently led to a rapid growth of Sino‐Foreign University collaboration, but research so far has focused mostly on the factors of policy alignment ( PA ) and institutional strategies ( IS ) separately as predictors of collaboration effectiveness ( CE ). This study aims at filling this gap by analysing the combined effect of PA and IS on CE , focusing on the interaction between PA and I S. The study was based on structured survey data gathered from 300 stakeholders comprising students, faculty members, and administrators from Sino‐Foreign joint programmes. The number of valid Sino‐Foreign collaboration cases was 176 after the aggregation of those cases that referred to the same Sino‐Foreign collaboration. Direct effects of PA and IS on CE and the latent interaction effect between PA and IS were evaluated by the use of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS‐SEM). Indicators such as Composite Reliability (CR), Average Variance Extracted (AVE), Heterotrait–Monotrait ratio (HTMT), R 2 , f 2 , Q 2 , and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) were used to evaluate reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, explanatory power, predictive relevance and model fit. The results indicate that there is no significant independent effect of PA ( β = 0.077, p = 0.263) and IS ( β = 0.056, p = 0.337) on CE . But the combined effect of PA and IS is statistically significant and positive for CE ( β = 0.128, p = 0.042). The results of this study show that the policy and Institutional Strategies are not the only determining factors in the effectiveness of collaboration in Sino‐Foreign higher education. Rather, effective collaboration occurs when there are aligned policy frameworks that give legitimacy and support for Institutional Strategies. The measurement model showed good reliability and validity, with CR values > 0.70 and AVE values > 0.50.