Globalisation Of Postgraduate Logistics Programmes; Challenges And Perspectives For Transnational Higher Education

Abstract

CONTEXT

The purpose of this paper is to investigate key challenges and issues relating to the sudden and rapid development of Transnational Higher Education, with particular emphasis on Logistics Education. Knight (2005) reflects, while the Observatory of Borderless Higher Education in the UK tracks recent developments and reports on them, there is still a real need to ensure that ‘cross-border education reflects and helps to meet individual countries’ educational goals, culture, priorities and policies’.

RESEARCH QUESTION/PURPOSE

The research question asks ‘What are the challenges of cross-border education and what does this mean for the development of Logistics programmes involved in Transnational Higher Education? As already discussed by Zinn and Goldsby (2014), the merger of logistics, operations, supply management, and related disciplines into the broader field of supply chain management (SCM) has brought together academic fields with different professional identities and competing visions of what SCM ought to be; what students ought to be taught, and what the priorities for research and publication should be.

KEY FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Globerson and Wolbrum (2014) state that academia continuously struggles with the content identification of logistics courses, wishing to support industry's needs. As expressed by Gravier and Farris (2008), articles about logistics education had progressed from asking, "Who are we?" in the 1960s and 1970s, to asking" What are we teaching?" from the 1980s. The debate concerning the content of a logistics programmes will always be around since practitioners' needs are dynamic. These initial findings support the fact that an interest in logistics education has been growing, but the author has identified that a third dimension concerning transnational discussions is not apparent.