Deanship at Chinese Universities: A Thematic Literature Review

Abstract

Deanship, the critical middle level of leadership in higher education, has been a relatively under-studied area in the Chinese context. Academic deans play significant roles in higher education, as they connect university leaders, administrative staff, faculty members, students, and the public. With the changing environment within and outside higher education, academic deans are encountering increasing role conflicts and challenges. Most of the literature discussing deanship has been concerned deans in Western societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and some countries in Europe. In China, deans’ leadership is situated in a different cultural and political discourse in higher education institutions, as they interact with academic, administrative, and political leadership. This study aims to investigate the status quo of the literature on deanship in Chinese universities, identify knowledge gaps, compare the Chinese literature with the existing literature in the West, and suggest future research directions. This article uses a narrative review method to examine the literature about deanship and to extract major themes in the field: roles and performance, challenges, effectiveness, and leadership development. Using these themes, it explores the literature on academic deans’ leadership in universities in China. The study found that the qualities necessary for deanship in Chinese universities emphasize deans’, communication competence, capacity to balance academic and administrative roles and ability to deal with faculty members and university leaders under the Communist Party’s leadership. Chinese academic deans have comparatively more constraints on their capacity to set goals and create vision in their faculties. They also face similar challenges to their counterparts in the West: role conflicts as scholars and academic managers, ambiguous expectations, and work stress. Suggestions and strategies for improving deans’ leadership at Chinese universities are also put forward.