KJEP 6:2 (2009), pp.

183-204

Successful integration of foreign faculty into Korean universities: A proposed framework

Douglas R. Gress
Seoul National University, Korea

Lynn Ilon
Seoul National University, Korea

Abstract
Korea is making a concerted effort to become a worldclass leader in higher education and the motivations for inviting foreign faculty in conjunction with this effort are clear. However, Korean universities are competing for foreign faculty in an era of global expansion in higher education, so the success of any effort to integrate foreign faculty into Korean universities must entail more than the mere introduction of content classes taught by invited foreign faculty. Korean universities cannot afford to leave the recruitment and integration processes of foreign faculty or the potential gains to students, native professors, and the inviting institution to chance. We therefore outline a threepronged framework that simultaneously focuses on student, faculty, and administrative considerations with the goal of not only increasing the effectiveness of foreign faculty recruitment and retention, but also the overall productivity of all participants in the process. Keywords: Korean universities, foreign faculty, Korean students, university policy, culture and education

The authors are grateful to the editorial staff and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
KEDI Journal of Educational Policy ISSN 1739 4341 Korean Educational Development Institute 2009, Electronic version: http://eng.kedi.re.kr

Douglas R. Gress & Lynn Ilon

Introduction
Recruitment of foreign faculty has become a competitive tool for most top ranked universities in Asia and across the world. Recent evidence from several countries indicates that this recruitment is not just an institutional policy, but part of a national competitiveness building strategy (Bala, 2008; Binh, 2009; Gulli, 2009; Ihlwan, 2009; Seo, 2009; Slovenia Press Agency, 2009; The National, 2009). This has in turn bolstered the desire to increase ratings in the Times World University Rankings, which includes the percentage of foreign faculty as one of its six measures of quality (Times Higher Education, 2008). Korean domestic policies, both at national and institutional levels, have targeted the provision of incentives to offer courses taught in English (McNeill, 2008), which is consistent with a global trend whereby universities are increasingly offering content classes in English (Tonkin, 2001). Indeed, Korean universities are competing for foreign faculty in an era of expansion in higher education that spans greater Asia, the Middle East, and South America (McBey & McKenna, 2006). Still, with all the attention being paid to the recruitment of foreign faculty in this competitive environment, relatively little has been written about how to retain such faculty and how to best integrate their knowledge and skills into existing institutional contexts so that all participants, both individual and organizational, can benefit over the long term. A parallel set of literature is now coming into play that of how to recruit, retain, and effectively integrate what the literature calls internationally mobile high skilled labor (Cervantes, 2002; Industry Canada, 2008; International Centre for Migration Policy, 2005; OECD, 2004; OsmanGani & Tan 2005; Schaffer & Harrison, 1998). This literature is reasonably well developed but has only recently encompassed academia (Kershaw, 2005; Van de BuntKokhuis, 2000). Consequently, as two foreign professors at one of Koreas major universities with professional training and experience in International Education and International Organizational Behavior, we combine insights from existing literature on foreign professors with that from related disciplines and our experience1) to propose a systems view of foreign professor integration into Korean universities visvis institutional productivity. Our review of the literature, observations, conversations with both foreign and Korean colleagues and students, and our professional backgrounds lead us to suggest that the successful recruitment, retention, and integration of foreign professors necessitate the deployment of an integrated framework that simultaneously encompasses multiple aspects of a university, namely students, faculty, and administration2). Such a framework has not been identified and this forms the motivation for our effort. In our extensive search for what the literature has to say about foreign professors, we found only two related empirical studies, one out of France (Noir sur Blanc, 2001) about European professors and one from Canada (Richardson,

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McBey, & McKenna, 2006). Additionally, we reviewed literature on highly skilled mobile professionals and organizations that seemed relevant to retention and integration issues (Hall, 1976; Hofstede, 1997; Industry Canada, 2008; Schaffer & Harrison, 1998; Templar, Tay, & Chandrasekar, 2006). Finally, we looked at allied literature pertaining to cultural and pedagogical issues (Hayden, Levy, & Thompson, 2007; Schneider & Barsoux, 2003; Varner, 2000). Further, we had to decide whether to write this article from an international, Asian, or Korean perspective. As both of us teach in Korea and one of us has a substantial amount of incountry experience, we reference Korea and use our observations to supplement voids in the literature. Nevertheless, we suspect that an integrated framework is widely applicable and informative and therefore hope to set the stage for substantial further research across many countries. Thus, this article proceeds by outlining the various components of an integrated framework for the successful recruitment and integration of foreign professors into Korean universities: students, faculty, and administrative. We proceed on the basis that the introduction of foreign faculty is an integrative process. That is, students, existing faculty, administrators, and the institution require some adjustment this does not exclude the necessary adjustment of the foreign faculty. Foreign faculty have much to learn and benefit from such appointments and their ability to do so requires that they view part of their job as learning to integrate and adjust. It is equally nave to think that students will adjust unproblematically or that an administration understands what it takes to retain such faculty while increasing the overall productivity of the institution. Our description of an integrated framework begins, therefore, with a discussion of student considerations, followed by discussions of faculty and administrative considerations. We conclude with recommendations drawn from each of these integrated components.

Student considerations
Considerations pertaining to student attitudes, cultural differences, varying degrees of language ability, and ethical lapses have invariably been approached either in the context of English education (e.g. Littlewood, 1999) or in international and intercultural education program development (e.g. Cushner, 1992; P. Greenbaum & S. Greenbaum, 1983; UNESCO, 2006). This section attempts to introduce and align these important existing contributions visvis foreign faculty and institutional considerations in Korea. Korean students in general have been found to have a more positive perception of their teachers than students from other cultural groups (Richards, Fisher, & Fraser, 1996). Yet research pertaining to student perceptions has more recently cautioned against the imposition of culturally based stereotypes,

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particularly where Asian students are concerned. Thus, the following examples of Korean student perceptions cannot be judged as inherently good or bad. Rather, as with all cultural groups, Korean students collectively have a distinct cultural approach to being students. The following subsections address three themes central to students and foreign faculty at Korean universities: (1) student attitudes and perceptions (of foreign faculty); (2) student concerns about differing English ability levels in content courses; and (3) academic ethics. In turn, we highlight some necessary recommendations for administrative consideration.

Attitudes and perceptions

If they are teaching in Korea, are they really any good? Why do Korean students have to study in English in Korea? Why do we even need foreign professors? These questions are generalized but reflect the attitudes and perceptions of some Korean students with regard to foreign faculty. From a Korean students point of view, holding these opinions is understandable. The first question, for example, stems from a long held perception that foreign academic institutions are in some way superior to Korean institutions. After all, Koreans regularly spend significant amounts of money sending their children abroad to study. Koreans represent the largest population of foreign university students in the U.S. (Park, 2009). Also, Korean universities, government agencies, and corporations have also long favored applicants with degrees from wellknown foreign universities over those with degrees from domestic institutions (Lee, 2003). One way to correct this misperception is to deploy a strategy that conceptualizes students as part of a team. Borrowing from Francesco and Gold (2005, p. 488), we will define team here as a group of two or more people who seek, to achieve goals to which its members express high commitment. Teams have more cohesiveness and responsibility and use member talents more effectively than do other groups. A key component to any multicultural team building activity is to make sure that everyone is familiar with the qualifications and experience of all team members (Francesco & Gold, 2005). University, college, and department PR vehicles (e.g., websites and campus newspapers) can be engaged in an effort to introduce foreign faculty to the student population, including their backgrounds, achievements, and motivations for wanting to work in Korea. Faculty may be interested in a Korean or (East) Asian related research agenda or specialization. Many foreign scholars have professional and personal relationships with Korean scholars in their field. Additionally, students might benefit from knowing that the competition for positions at Korean universities can be fierce and that foreign professors are carefully chosen from a competitive field of applicants. The second and third questions, Why do students have to study in English in Korea? and, Why do we even need foreign professors? are also under-

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standable. Students have chosen to study in their home country, so why should they have to take core courses taught in a foreign language? Here, we suggest two streams of thought that can be communicated to students during an orientation at the college or departmental level. The first point is that universities all over the world are increasingly offering courses in English (Tonkin, 2001). Second, diversity builds organizational strength and increases the value of education (Richard, 2000; Weaver & Qi, 2005). Many Korean institutions have traditionally given hiring priority to applicants who graduated from the same school (Lee, 2003). Inclusion of foreign faculty, which contributes to diversity, helps move universities away from dependence on this practice and in doing so increases global competitiveness. This may help assure students (and Korean faculty) that foreign scholars are not receiving an unfair advantage during the recruitment and hiring process.

Different (English) ability levels in content courses

Scholars have studied the difficulties faced by Chinese university students in the U.S. (Wan, 1996), language and culture impacts on U.S. and Taiwanese studentteacher expectations (Niehoff, Turnley, Yen, & Chwen, 2001), and general strategies for increasing the involvement of East Asian students in international educational environments in North American schools (Schneider & Lee, 1990). General suggestions from the above studies include the development of more friendly relationships between students and teachers to facilitate crosscultural awareness and communication, participation in grouplevel projects, presentations and discussions, and the introduction of crosscultural education for faculty and students. We apply these insights to the Korean experience in an effort to enrich the learning experience for students and, at the same time, the productivity of both foreign professors and universities. Rather than digressing into a debate on the impact of culture on student perceptions related to classroom participation and relative language ability,3) we offer some practical insights that can be communicated to students prior to their participation in classes taught by foreign professors. First, students can be made aware that they have an opportunity to learn about a foreign culture and to improve their foreign language ability while simultaneously expanding their core knowledge. By learning to adapt to an environment predicated on the values, beliefs, and norms of someone from another culture, they increase their potential contribution to globalizing institutions when they embark on their careers. They should be encouraged in advance to ask questions, challenge ideas, and participate to their fullest ability in the spirit of acquiring a more robust cross cultural academic experience. Second, students should be made aware that professors and administrators are cognizant of the varying degrees of student English language abilities. Student efforts to learn via a foreign language are thus fully supported and
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appreciated. Students who are less confident of their English ability may be encouraged to prepare questions, input, or criticisms prior to class (Weaver & Qi, 2005) or to ask for additional faculty support regarding readings or topics they may find particularly challenging. Lastly, students should be made aware that in taking content courses in English, the emphasis is primarily placed on performance related to the course material and not on their individual spoken English ability. If they can communicate their ideas and understanding of the target material sufficiently, they have the potential to do well in class. As part of an integrated framework, all these points should be communicated to students.

Student perceptions and ethics

Academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and cheating, in particular, have received considerable attention in educational literature for well over a decade now. Roig and Ballew (1994), for example, provide an insightful look into the attitudes of students and professors regarding academic dishonesty, and a subsequent inquiry (Roig, 1997) unearths some very alarming statistics for cheating at universities in the United States. The presence of Asian students at Australian and New Zealand universities has been found to contribute to the perceptions of increases in academic dishonesty (Dick et al., 2003). Recent surveys of Korean university students have yielded a disturbing picture of academic dishonesty. For example, an April 2009 survey found that roughly 27% of Korean University (KU) students had cheated on an exam and that 25% had paid for papers online (Jung, 2009). Well publicized incidents of cheating (e.g., the record breaking university entrance examine scandal in 2004 or the SNU medical school cheating scandal in 2008 involving over 30 students) suggest the susceptibility to cheating that would support the KU survey numbers, perhaps beyond. This topic is particularly pertinent when (a) perceptions of what constitute cheating may vary between students and nonKorean professors, thus potentially ushering in administrative confusion regarding the resolution of incidences of academic dishonesty, and (b) there may be increased pressure to cheat or plagiarize when students write in a second language. Either of these scenarios poses a potential threat to the international perceptions of the Korean student and institutional viability and competitiveness. One remedy may be to introduce students to a university honor code based on international standards relating to exactly what practices constitute academic dishonesty (see Dick et al. (2003) and Martin, Sheard, Bareiss, Carter, Joyce, Harding, & Laxer (2003) for thorough discussions of this topic). As McCabe and Trevio conclude, honor codes are not very meaningful unless students are continually made aware of them and are exposed to ongoing dialogues in the class and outside of class about relevant matters of integrity and honor (McCabe & Trevio, 2002, quoted in Roig & Marks, 2006, p. 168). In the international educational context, this would require

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the development of a cohesive university policy regarding cheating and plagiarism and consistent topdown administrative support. There is a difference, for example, between an ethical dilemma and an ethical lapse. An ethical lapse occurs when someone knows they are violating ethical behavior yet chooses to engage in the behavior nonetheless (Bovee & Thill, 2005). By continually voicing the conditions and behavior that constitute academic dishonesty in all forms, whether cheating on exams or plagiarizing papers, the potential for students to claim ignorance of standards emanating from a crosscultural learning environment will be diminished. We believe that this logic further reinforces the inclusion of student considerations into an integrated framework encompassing students, foreign professors, and administrations. In the following section, we continue by examining faculty considerations.

Faculty considerations
Guides for international faculty have long been part of the transition process for foreign faculty in North American institutions. Sarkisian (1997), for example, provides a comprehensive guide for international faculty in US universities, covering such diverse subjects of interest as general advice and teaching strategies, building student relationships, making effective presentations, leading discussions with potential contextbased language difficulties, and grading. Given that Korean universities are currently recruiting and hiring large numbers of foreign professors across a diverse range of disciplines, some of the lessons in this literature may be of benefit to our suggested integrated framework for Korean universities. In this section, we explore three specific topics that, in our experience, prove challenging to instructors new to the Korean educational environment or that may help facilitate teaching effectiveness in the context of the Korean classroom: teaching and the use of projects, grading, and research.

Teaching
Many foreign faculty have years of teaching and research experience before coming to a Korean university. This experience will prove valuable but not necessarily sufficient to assure their success in teaching, particularly since many academics may not consider, as Fry, Ketterridge, and Marshall (1999) suggest, ...how their students learn and if the way they teach is predicated on enabling learning to happen (p. 9). Compounding this is that students in a foreign educational institution learn differently compared with students at a home institution. Consequently, for success to be enabled, faculty members need to be integrated into local expectations and practices. If students, colleagues, departments, or the university are expected to adjust to the foreign faculty methods, then such

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adjustments need to be made explicit. Confusion can prevail without a careful look at who is expected to adjust and in which manner. Also, longheld customs and practices are often backed by informal or formal reward systems. Without guidance, all participants can be caught in a situation where change is expected but not rewarded. This puts all at risk and creates an atmosphere of resistance. Teaching styles vary throughout the world according to culture, custom, and history. As Cortazzi and Jin (1997) point out, professors and students bring with them culturally embedded behaviors and concepts. Faculty can be told that their different styles are welcome. However, this ignores a potential reality involving a set of culturally embedded base expectations that can persist even in the face of institutionally sanctioned change. If these embedded expectations are violated by incoming foreign professors, this will likely be viewed as a demonstration of incompetence. As such, new faculty should be introduced to local teaching styles even while students are made aware of the potential teaching differences between native and foreign professors. Foreign teaching styles can be successfully integrated but only once the base teaching expectations are made explicit. One of the best ways of conveying this is to invite the foreign faculty member to observe the classes of a colleague who is deemed to be a successful teacher. Even if the teaching is being conducted in Korean, foreign faculty can observe classroom interactions, styles, and pace. Additionally, we suggest that foreign faculty be given several syllabi to peruse. None of this locks them into the given teaching styles, but it does provide them with a basis for understanding student (and possibly institutional) teaching expectations. Substantial deviations, then, can be made explicit but explained from the base of what is already known and expected. Another scenario may entail foreign faculty adjusting their styles to conform, in a large part, to base teaching styles at the inviting institution. Still, as lessons from organizational behavior research suggest, organizational considerations need to be understood within the rubric of the macro culture, the organizational culture, and the organizations capacity to enact change (Hofstede, 1999). Korean universities should not make the assumption that such information will naturally be passed from existing faculty to new faculty or that uniformity will be achieved across the university, college, and department levels. Therefore, a top priority of the institution should be to assure that all instructionrelated materials are translated. This includes class lists, the web site where syllabi and enrollments are registered, and all the materials needed to record grades. Faculty cannot rely on students to do this for them and they ought to be able to operate independently on this front. Given the importance of teaching and the implicit expectations of both faculty and students, there is a clear need for an orientation on teaching. Experienced local faculty with international experience can contrast the local teaching style with that of at least one foreign style. Existing foreign faculty should be encouraged to contribute to this forum. They could talk with new

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faculty about the challenges they faced and how they made the adjustments. At the same time, standing research has provided some useful suggestions that can facilitate the transition by foreign professors to classrooms in Korean universities. Class projects, for example, assigned and monitored at the group level may provide an excellent means by which foreign faculty can engage students who may otherwise remain at the fray during comprehensive lectures (Gipps, 1999). According to UNESCOs (2006, p. 35) vision of intracultural education, globally oriented learning institutions, promote an active learning environment, for example through the conduct of concrete projects, in order to demystify book based knowledge and to give people a sense of confidence and to acquire cultural skills, such as the ability to communicate or to cooperate with others. Specifically pertaining to East Asian students, Schneider and Lee (1990) suggest that group projects are an excellent way to promote interaction with other students, which may prove especially useful when international students and Korean students study together. Participating in projects may also help to increase participation and levels of interaction between students and their professor (Howard, 2002), thus addressing many foreign professors concerns about engaging Korean students in the classroom. Modern Asian students are less prone to perceive the learning process as passive (from teacher to student), a view that challenges standing stereotypes of East Asian students (Littlewood, 2000). However, participation grades, often viewed as a possible alternative to group projects when soliciting student engagement, are often met with negative perceptions on the part of students (Meyer, 2007). Consequently, we suggest foreign professors engage their Korean students via group projects rather than hoping to solicit participation based on a separate grade for participation.

Grading
Over the years, a point of consternation voiced to one of the authors by foreign teachers in Korea is that Korean students expect grades based on their perceived effort or circumstances or are under the assumption that classes taught in English will yield an easy A. However, many professors from western cultures view grading as an empirical process. Americans, for example, tend to view facts as, empirical, observable, and measurable (Stewart & Bennett, 1991, pp. 30 31), a view at odds with Korean perceptions. Testing and grading go handandhand, and as Gipps (1999) explains, tests reflect the values, culture and experience of the authors (p. 360). As such, the values attributed to the manufacturing and grading of exams and to the subsequent assignment of final grades ostensibly vary between nonKoreans and Koreans. In Korea, the emphasis tends to be on the rigorous university entrance exam process and, once accepted, graduating from a university is more often than not perceived as a foregone conclusion. Given the sociocultural differences
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between Korean students and foreign faculty, we agree with the general recommendation of Gipps (1999). The author stresses, ...that there be an explicit account of the construct being assessed and the criteria for assessment, which should be available to both students and teachers (Gipps, 1999, p. 366). These differences should therefore be communicated to foreign faculty from both the departmental and university administrations and from the administration and the foreign professor to the Korean students. The faculty, having a priori knowledge of cultural differences, and only after having announced their grading policies clearly to students at the beginning of each semester, need to be given the requisite leeway to grade as they see fit. Many foreign professors view grading as an empirical process, so while grades can indeed be challenged by students, a successful challenge to a grade must be presented in a measurable, empirical way and foreign faculty decisions need to be supported by the administration. Again, we view this as lending credibility to the development and implementation of a studentfacultyadministrative framework. Our recommendation is that universities should not obligate foreign visiting and tenure track professors to make courses easier or to assign larger percentages of higher grades. It is understandable that Korean universities seeking to gain popularity for courses taught by foreign faculty may wish to relax grading standards for courses taught in English. If this decision is made, such a strategy should only be pursued over the short term. Over the longer term, we suggest that this may not only cause a rift in facultystudent and facultyadministration relationships, but that it may also diminish the international credibility of Korean students, academic programs, and institutions.

Research
Quickly disappearing are the days when the occasional academic wandered the globe hoping for adventure. Although the allure of travel and experience is still valid, most foreign faculty members view themselves within a global professional framework and consider assignments overseas to be part of their professional development. Since global professional reputations are based on publications, the research environment is, not surprisingly, a primary consideration for attracting and keeping foreign faculty. This is borne out by many studies. A survey conducted by Noir sur Blanc (2001) of 150 foreign faculty from 20 different countries indicates that for 81.3% of respondents, the primary reason for coming to a foreign university is to avail themselves of good research opportunities. Although salaries, benefits, and travel to a new location are attractions, it is the research environment that is of primary importance. Indeed, Welchs 1997 comparison of foreign and domestic faculty using the Carnegie survey of 20,000 faculty members worldwide finds that foreign professors are more strongly motivated by research than their indigenous peers and that this could

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be a significant rationale for their relocation decisions (Welch, 1997). Lastly, in a related research vein, Canada (Industry Canada, 2008) has undertaken a major multiyear study to determine how to attract and retain people in various highly skilled professions. Their study on foreign faculty reveals that, it is perhaps unsurprising that a key issue for the majority of participants related to their research activity, including research networks (Industry Canada, 2008, p. 33). Given the critical importance of research to the recruitment, satisfaction, and retention of faculty, it is important that research support be thought through carefully. Local faculty members are familiar with the sources of funding and have substantial networks to access such funding. These need to be made explicit to the incoming professors. We recommend, therefore, that all information (emails and printed materials) on research opportunities and networks, including announcements of lectures and research presentations, be communicated in English. This does not mean that all such communication need be fully translated. Rather, short summaries or descriptions can be provided along with English subject lines in emails. If the faculty member has enough interest given the short notification, he/she can pursue a fuller translation. Helping the faculty member settle into a research environment will make a significant difference in their productivity and job satisfaction. To facilitate this, technology should be ordered immediately and equipped with English software, if needed, along with the capacity to communicate in Korean. Graduate student support ought to be available from the first day, along with any designated lab space and equipment. Although globalizing academic institutions have a mammoth job of transitioning web sites to bilingual usage, those that support research should be of the highest priority. Our suggestions include thoroughly reviewing library and institutional research pages to assure they are fully accessible to foreign faculty, and a foreign faculty orientation to the library how to use it, who is available to help, and how to use various services such as interlibrary loans. A mentor colleague who can help navigate the local publication world, resources, and practices would be tremendously valuable.

Administrative considerations
There are clear advantages to globalizing the faculty body of an educational institution and, once situated, foreign faculty members generally seek to be highly productive (Dostie & Leger, 2006). Once initiated, however, institutions aspiring to globalize can only do so if they are successful at dealing with objections to foreign personnel and accompanying prospects for change (Yip, 1995). In order to do so, universities must be able to clearly outline their objectives visvis their capacity to change within the framework of the larger

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institutional and macro culture within which they are situated (Hofstede, 1999). There is a clear organizational logic to bringing in foreign professors, but the success of integrating foreign professors goes far beyond any bureaucratic efforts. Noir sur Blanc (2001), for example, found that there is a substantial difference between universities that had a long, successful history of foreign professor recruitment and those that were aspiring to create such a path. In the following sections, therefore, we examine three elements critical to any globalization of personnel effort: recruitment, support, and retention and promotion of foreign faculty.

Recruitment
Underlying any recruitment effort must be the understanding that taking a job in a foreign country involves substantial risks to the careers of international professionals. There is a risk of losing ones network of researchers, of removing oneself from a tenure process that is supported by known publication standards and relationships, and of not being able to reenter the academic stream in ones home country. Richardson and Zikic (2007) note that international faculty were keenly sensitive to these risks when they moved outside of North America and Europe. Foreign faculty will likely view a move to Korea as a risky endeavor unless they already have substantial links to the country, institution, or faculty. There are benefits, however, to making such a move. A way of minimizing perceived risks is to make the recruitment process straight forward so that nothing is left to an applicants imagination.4) For example, formal contracts are important to many foreign faculty. Without a formal written contract, including clear statements of salary, benefits, and expectations, one might well be faced with leaving a good job with only the apparent promise of benefits but nothing in writing. In some cultures, since promises not put in writing are sometimes reneged, these are big risks especially if a family move is involved. We suggest that once an offer is made, it needs to be conveyed in writing in English if the faculty member does not speak Korean. Additionally, once negotiated and set in the local (in this case, Korean) currency, salaries should be provided in writing. Although local currency can fluctuate against the professors home currency, the professor benefits during these fluctuations from having a stable income relative to local costs. This means that funds sent back home will have a fluctuating value, but this is an associated cost of living in a foreign country and faculty who are not willing to face this risk (or potential benefit) are, in our experience, not ready for international work. Salaries ought to be broken down into the base salary, the structure of bonuses or travel allotments (if any), and any costs associated with housing to be born by the professor. The local tax burden should also be addressed.

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Equally important are the implied benefits which are expressed informally on the web or in person during meetings. Formal offers should spell out the full package of salary and benefits along with terms of employment. Benefits from established organizations such as pensions and healthcare can be referred to in name with accompanying information. Although the welcoming university might view such information as casual conveying an atmosphere of support and concern to the interviewing faculty it is taken by incoming faculty as indicative of what awaits them at the other end of a contract. Expectations of how often conference travel is paid, of teaching obligations during summer or winter breaks, of promotion guidelines, of housing costs and benefits, and of graduate student support and lab/technology offerings will be viewed by an applicant as bona fide job components. Specifically concerning housing, actual housing logistics are normally handled by separate administrative units at Korean universities (e.g. General Affairs) and the hiring administrative body at the university, college, or departmental levels may be unaware of specificities regarding housing prices and policies. We therefore suggest that the hiring administration fully acquaint themselves with this important element of employment terms prior to any recruitment effort being made. Research on international education professionals highlights the importance of crosscultural and communicative differences that impact the perceived value of contracts. Industry Canada found that when job characteristics were described but not adhered to, foreign faculty members felt betrayed and lost trust. The conclusions drawn from this study are specific, stating, Clearly, this finding indicates that written standards dramatically reduce problems of misinterpretation of expected roles, performance levels, resources and rewards for both parties. Indeed, unfulfilled expectations contribute greatly to reported job dissatisfaction, a factor strongly and negatively related to turnover behavior (Industry Canada, 2008, p. 64). Correspondingly, Templar et al. (2006, p. 168) find that, job related information provided by the organization and perceived to accurately portray the work requirements and demands in the new cultural setting may ease work adjustment of global professionals in the foreign assignment. Similarly, accurate information regarding local living conditions may facilitate adjustment to a foreign work environment. Indeed, a consistent flow of accurate information is critical to the overseas recruitment and hiring processes and this flow should continue after employment has been engaged. During the hiring process, prospective foreign faculty need to be made aware of the interview and approval processes and the time frame within which the process will transpire. This should be communicated by a senior person at the hiring institution in order to build trust and to alleviate any possible miscommunication by potentially underinformed staff. Further, during the application phase, a number of documents are required of foreign faculty. In many cases, however, these documents are never required during the employment process at home and may take an applicant a significant amount of time,
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money and effort to procure. We suggest that a comprehensive list of all documents required be given to applicants upon notification of initial consideration and that this list be updated as necessary throughout the approval and hiring phases of the employment process. We strongly recommend this because prospective faculty may find themselves confronted with a seemingly unending stream of document requests that could have been more easily handled in one concentrated effort. Some of this communication is often handled by lowerlevel staff or student support at Korean universities. However, there are substantial cultural differences worldwide pertaining to which types of communication are handled by senior people (even when, in fact, a clerk or student may have done the work) and which is handled by staff or students. In some cultures, having ones application packet passed to a junior staff member can imply that ones application is no longer being taken seriously or that it has encountered problems that the administration does not wish to address. A likely response by applying faculty might be to withdraw their application or to fail to engage actively in the process. One suggestion to rectify any potential problem during this stage is to instruct junior staff or students at the inviting institution to send outgoing emails to a senior (Korean) faculty member who can then forward the message to the foreign applicant with an accompanying sentence. In this way, all correspondence will be passed to the foreign applicant directly from a senior member of the institution.

Support
The literature on recruitment of foreign faculty and other highly skilled global workers makes a strong case for the role of support services both work and non work related (see Schaffer & Harrison, 1998, p. 113). This not only increases the smoothness of the transition, but leaves new employees with a better impression of their host locale and their employer in addition to building commitment during the initial stages of employment (Industry Canada, 2008). Good websites with detailed information on contracts, health benefits, pensions, services, and institutional support mitigate the cultural and institutional problems of adjustment (Richardson, et al., 2006; Eistenkraft, 2005). Fortunately, there are a myriad of related web sites in Korea maintained by the government. To the best of our knowledge, however, few formal efforts are made on the part of many university administrations to make these sites known to incoming foreign faculty. Accordingly, we suggest that institutions consider putting together a formal orientation for incoming foreign faculty. Such an orientation, both in content and form, could be substantially handled by volunteers within existing faculty. Options could include a neighborhood tour or getting everyone who wishes to be added to a local list serve. If the institution has extensive English language information on the web, a short guide to that information and a web page with links should be introduced. In short, evidence strongly suggests that orientation

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programs (Gareis & Williams, 2004), online orientation via specialized web sites (Eisenkraft, 2005), and comprehensive ongoing orientation efforts (Industry Canada, 2008) improve transitions to international locales and overall faculty adaptation and productivity. University administrators can also capitalize on the local knowledge accumulated by their existing foreign faculty. Experienced foreign faculty can be put in direct and sometimes formal contact with incoming faculty. In our experience, existing foreign faculty are often more than willing to correspond with prospective faculty and to help them adjust upon arrival if the university formalizes the arrangement. The institution cannot assume that such arrangements will naturally occur informally as faculty come from different countries with different traditions of collectivism and privacy. Volunteer focus groups or occasional committees could develop a handbook for foreign faculty, make maps of services available in surrounding communities, and make lists of campus resources they found useful or interesting. They could also offer advice on institutional adjustments that would make work easier for incoming professionals.

Retention and promotion

Industry Canada found that misunderstandings about tenure and job expectations were a primary source of tension among foreign faculty, particularly junior faculty, and a likely reason for them to leave their post (Industry Canada, 2008). But these expectations may not be a good fit between incoming foreign faculty and the institution even when the institution espouses to be working toward a global standard. As we inclined previously, an organization must take inventory of its strengths, its embedded local environment, and its capacity to effectively enact change in order to succeed globally. If a global standard is the goal, then institutions may need to rethink incentives along global lines when setting performance and publications standards for foreign faculty. Research expectations are a good example. Although the institution may have a set of standards by which their local faculty are evaluated, research requirements of foreign faculty may well need to be different. It is reasonable to expect, for example, that foreign faculty publish in ranked international journals. As foreign faculty members often have an established record of English language publications, their publishing networks are in English. At the same time, a local preference for a comparatively high number of publications (traditionally met by extensively publishing in local journals) cannot or will not likely be matched by foreign faculty. The process of publishing in the top five to tenpercent of internationally ranked journals in ones field takes considerably more time than publishing in locallyproduced journals. Aligning the global framework for publishing expectations with the local, institutionally sanctioned expectations for foreign professors benefits both the institution and the professors.
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Concluding remarks and recommendations

Viewing the integration of foreign faculty as one of the pieces of building a global framework for a university takes the implicit value judgment out of the process and frames the effort beyond that of simply raising the counts of foreign faculty and the content courses taught in English. Thus, our number one recommendation is that the recruitment and retention of foreign faculty be viewed within an integrated framework involving the foreign faculty, existing faculty, administration, and students with the end goal of increasing the productivity and competitiveness of all parties involved. Within this framework, recruitment ought to be viewed as the beginning of a process, not a goal in itself. A period of recruitment is followed by a process of initial adjustment and information exchange. The building of networks, processes, and structural and administrative changes to the environment follows and foreign faculty can become part of the resources that can be drawn to inform and recruit new faculty. Throughout the process, existing faculty, administrators, and students also go through an adjustment and with it, the institution changes. The recruitment and retention of foreign faculty is therefore a process of constant change, renewal, and evaluation. After taking stock of an institutions capacity to change and beginning the process, all parties need to find ways of consistently assessing the changes, evaluating them, making further changes, or reversing some changes that have not been sufficiently successful. We have placed particular emphasis on research. The importance of research can easily be overlooked but needs to be dealt with explicitly by inviting institutions. All faculty, domestic and foreign, benefit from an increase in collaborative research opportunities. Institutions become more competitive along the way. Thus, another recommendation is to identify ways in which the local institutional standards differ from global standards and to explicitly determine which standards, norms, and practices will be targeted for adjustment and which will remain largely unchanged. Make these goals explicit, chart a course of change over time, and evaluate the results periodically. Teaching styles are personal, fielddetermined, institutionallybound, and culturally determined. Flexibility remains a good standard for all professors globally. Nevertheless, at least some local standard may be applicable regardless of this global flexibility. Also, students will necessarily have to make a substantial adjustment regardless of the sensitivity of the professor. Our recommendation is that student considerations be included in the framework deployed to attract and retail foreign faculty. To this end, student feedback should be solicited and students should have their own orientation. In this scenario, standing attitudes and perceptions should be addressed and expectations concerning global academic standards should be made explicit. Foreign faculty members are generally committed to the adjustment effort as

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evidenced by the risks they take in seeking foreign employment and their desire to be in Korea. It is not unreasonable to expect them to make adjustments as well. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to assume they can work in an environment that is in the process of adjustment and that has not been fully internationalized. However, existing faculty can be called upon to augment the adjustment process by mentoring new foreign faculty members and sharing ideas. Making expectations and information explicit and widely available to students and faculty and providing ongoing support are a good beginning to a long process dedicated to increasing productivity and competitiveness not only for Korean universities, but also for all parties involved. Finally, as we stated at the beginning of this article, we hope that our generation of an integrated framework for the recruitment and retention of foreign professors into Korean universities, encompassing student, faculty, and administrative considerations, sets the stage for further research. It is important, therefore, that we highlight some potential shortcomings of our efforts in order to motivate future related research efforts. This article represents a proposed framework based upon a substantive literature review and our own observations and experience, and is therefore necessarily limited in scope. The proposed framework developed in this article is the beginning. Further research may unearth diverse viewpoints concerning native faculty or student perceptions of our recommendations or it may discover related components to incorporate into the framework. Researchers concentrating on educational administration or policy may be able to delve deeper into assessment criteria for an educational institutions capacity for change given our initial recommendations, the feasibility of some of our recommendations at the institutional level, or potential crosscultural difficulties associated with the implementation of an integrated multiple actor framework in Korea and elsewhere.
1) Collectively, the two of us have experience working abroad in over 20 countries, over 25 years of university teaching experience (one of us on three continents) and eight years of teaching experience at the university level in Korea. One of us has resided in Korea for roughly 18 years, has completed a Masters degree at a Korean university, and speaks fluent Korean. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the inclusion of our background information to bolster the credibility of our observations and the subsequent recommendations we generate. 2) In fact, the literature also details the importance of family, local schooling, spousal adjustments, and community and support services outside the workplace. We have restricted our discussion, here, to the university setting. 3) See Fassinger (1995) for a discussion of culture and nonverbal misinterpretation in participation, or Weaver & Qi (2005) for a review of the participation literature in general. 4) Risk and cultural preferences for generalvsspecific, as well as perceptions regarding contract agreements, are part of a wider literature tied to crosscultural negotiation. As an example, Metcalf et al. (2006), in their fivecountry study on comparative negotiation behavior, find an overwhelming preference for specific agreements, with Americans and Finns demonstrating the lowest preference for general agreements. For reasons of brevity, we do not delve into this extensive literature, citing, instead, from studies specifically focusing on professors.

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Address for correspondence

Douglas R. Gress Assistant Professor Department of Geography Education Seoul National University 599 GwanakRo, GwanakGu Seoul 151748, Korea Tel: 82 2 880 7739 Fax: 82 2 882 9873 Email: douglas@snu.ac.kr

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