Examining the internationalisation strategies of United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions: an investigation of market entry mode choices in Nigeria

While international expansion due to increased globalisation has become a strategic imperative for many HEIs especially in the West, few research works have been dedicated to explaining how UK HEIs internationalise and make entry decisions. The importance of choosing the appropriate mode of entry in a market is increasingly significant today in light of decreasing funding and intense competition. While many developing country markets like Nigeria, with peculiarities such as limited capacity, poor quality education and students’ preference for western education, present significant opportunities for these institutions, they often come with insurmountable challenges forcing HEIs to adapt their strategies in each market. This research as a result seeks to investigate the internationalisation strategy and entry mode choices of UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Nigeria. This is part of an initiative to address the deficit of research on higher education internationalisation strategies especially within the Sub-Saharan African region. The literature review chapter provided an overview of the conception of internationalisation and the analysis of some of the key internationalisation theories to understand the strategy behind market entry mode decisions. An interpretivist philosophy is adopted for the study and qualitative data is collected from international development heads and regional advisers at 10 North West of England Universities; heads of agencies and senior advisers within organisations involved in HEI internationalisation. These participants were selected due to their direct involvement with the research focus. The data was collected using semi-structured interview method and the analysis was done using thematic analysis. Some of the significant findings from the study showed that firstly, HEI internationalisation is conceived of and practiced from two broad perspectives – ‘unified’ and ‘un-unified’ perspectives, or how integrated or unintegrated their international operations are formulated and managed. These perspectives align with particular combinations of economic, pedagogic, and prestige-oriented motivations for internationalisation and help to determine strategic choices. While the HEIs that take an integrated approach to internationalisation tend to be motivated more by prestige-oriented and pedagogic rationales, the motivations of those with an unintegrated approach tend to align more with the economic considerations. Secondly, the result also showed that overall, there are five distinct entry mode options used by UK HEIs in international markets including – export, distance learning, articulation, franchise, dual degree, and joint venture/offshore campus. Despite the preference and commitment to a particular combinations of entry modes in the many international contexts these HEIs operate in, both groups however seem to limit their entry options in the Nigerian market, choosing to focus primarily on the export mode option. This suggests a preference for low risk and low commitment strategy which seems at odds with the significant customer demand for UK branded higher education provision in this context. Thirdly, the study analysing the entry mode decision of UK HEIs in Nigeria through the lens of the institutional theory, the resource-based theory, and the transaction cost theory a proxy for the OLI framework, found that some institution specific characteristics/factors, location-specific characteristics/factors and transaction characteristics/factors affected the entry mode choice of the HEIs the market. These specific influences in fine grained manner determined the degree of risk, resource commitment and control and in doing so help to narrow the choice of feasible entry strategies available to the institutions. The findings hold an important implication for HEI managers and other practitioners as it offers valuable help in the understanding of internationalisation and entry mode decisions. It is important that HEIs decision-makers understand the importance of various rationales for internationalisation and how these various ways of thinking about internationalisation inform various aspect of their activities. It is expected also that in expanding into international markets especially those in developing markets, the HEIs must consider the resources availability, their strategic focus, and the overall cost of operating in the international market. From the findings of this study, the host operating cost is an important consideration in choosing the appropriate mode choice for a market