Foreign Degree Holders in East Asian Countries

The aim of this study is to develop a theory of acculturation process of foreign degree holders in East Asian universities and empirically examine their academic performance. In particular, this study focuses on Korea and Hong Kong academics. This study will explore on how foreign degree holders have socialized in each national context, and develop a theory of acculturation of foreign degree academics in East Asian countries, and empirically examine whether foreign degree holders are actually more research productive than domestic degree holders across higher education systems. For this study, we selected Korea as a county that mainly hires Korean returnees after their PhD in abroad, and Hong Kong SAR as the case of hiring foreign degree holders across their nationalities.
This study contributes to the theoretical discussions of academic acculturation in different contexts. Further, the comparative perspective of this study will enable to understand how acculturation processes are different or similar across countries.