Determinants of Mobility Management in Higher Education: Evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

Academic mobility is a popular phenomenon at universities, particularly for promoting knowledge exchange, attracts the attention scientific community in recent years, especially in the context of integration and The Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR). Indeed, FIR is place convergency many dimensions that make mobility flows at universities more advantageous with unlimited connection and interactions, including virtual space and digital tools for mobility. The paper aims at exploring the key determinants of mobility management in higher education to respond to the impacts of FIR. The conceptual model of this study emphasizes mobility management of high-quality human resources following their contribution process: attraction/recruitment, contribution onsite, and return. The model also shows that both individuals and universities have common and unique interests in enhancing mobility flows while creating knowledge transfer regions. It is important to combine these benefits to create active mobility flows. By analyzing some typical mobility flows in a Vietnam national university Hanoi case study, we emphasized that the current philosophy of Vietnamese universities is mostly to focus on solving the lost mobility flows (brain drain) instead of going hand-in-hand with managing the value of high-quality human resource mobility and connecting networks to make to promote knowledge exchange. Thus, it requires Vietnamese universities should change for adapt to FIR’s impacts with academic mobility and manage mobility of human resources follow all their contribution process. This study explores these topics for their impact on FIR to manage mobility flows of high-quality human resources using assessment data which collected snowball methods. Finally, the paper proposes the policy framework supporting mobility management and priority solutions for promoting the knowledge interactions zones and developing smart platforms for university governance and human resource management adapting with the context of the FIR.