Review of Educational Theory | Volume 02 | Issue 04 | October 2019 Review of Educational Theory https://ojs.bilpublishing.com/index.php/ret ARTICLE Comparisons of Undergraduate Business Administration Education in Greater Bay Area, China Xuemei Wu1,2* 1. Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, Guangdong, 519085, China 2. City University of Macau, Macau, 999078, China ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history Business administration education plays an important part in supporting the Received: 18 September 2019 development of business industry and ensuring the ongoing supply of qual- ied human resources to meet the demanding industry requirements. How- Revised: 25 September 2019 ever, the dramatic growth of the economy has not been accompanied by Accepted: 21 October 2019 an adequate response from the education system. It is therefore, necessary Published Online: 31 October 2019 to review the existing business administration programs. This paper will make a comparison of the current undergraduate programs in Business Ad- Keywords: ministration in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the six dimensions: curriculum and instruction; strategic planning; administrative Greater Bay Area management; faculty; student achievements; and resources. Suggestions for Business administration education the further development of Business Administration programs in the bay Quality of educational programs area will then be proposed. 1. Introduction draw on experience of the existing educational program will be a very effective way to seek for improvement. he business prosperity of Guangdong, Hong Kong, Both Hong Kong and Macao are well-developed eco- and Macao Greater Bay Area develops with the in- nomic areas, where Business Administration education is creasing emphasis on technology and cross-cultur- T already matured in many ways. These three regions now alization. To achieve this growth, it is most important to are in a tighter connection because of the newly promoted develop the next generation of business professionals with concept of “Greater Bay Area”. sufficient and effective knowledge and skills to ensure The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area sustainable growth. In this situation, business Administra- tion Education is of vital importance, as human resource (Greater Bay Area) includes three main regions: the nine development is critical to the success of business in many municipalities in Guangdong Province: Guangzhou, Shen- markets. Only by optimizing the teaching quality of Busi- zhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, ness Administration majors, can we meet the ever-increas- Jiangmen and Zhaoqingthe; Hong Kong Special Adminis- ing demands for qualied professionals in business. How- trative Region (HKSAR), and the Macao Special Admin- ever, the current Business Administration education fails istrative Region (Macao SAR). The strategic development to meet the rapid development of the business world and of Greater Bay Area involved cooperation and communi- there is an urgent need to reform the current programs. To cation of different elds of these regions, and that would *Corresponding Author: Xuemei Wu, No. 18 Jinfeng Road, Tangjiawan Town, Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai, Guangdong, 519085, China; E-mail: [email protected]. 18 Distributed under creative commons license 4.0 DOI: https://doi.org/10.30564/ret.v2i4.1224 Review of Educational Theory | Volume 02 | Issue 04 | October 2019 include the education sectors. As indicated in the Outline 9 Zhuhai 4 Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao 10 HKSAR 13 Greater Bay Area, cooperation and development in educa- 11 Macao SAR 10 tion sector in the Greater Bay Area should be strongly en- Total Greater bay area 77 couraged. This plan places emphasis on cooperation and mutual development of higher education of the bay area. Source: http://xxpt.gdedu.gov.cn To achieve this, it will be benecial to rst look at higher 2.1 Higher Education in Hong Kong education in the Greater Bay Area from a holistic point of view. Hong Kong offers high quality, diverse and exible access to higher education, represented by the eight universities 2. Overview of Higher Education in the funded by the education grants committee: the University Greater Bay Area of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong are rich in higher Hong Kong Baptist University, City University of Hong education resources. There are 151 general universities Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technol- in Guangdong province, among which 64 are at the un- ogy, Hong Kong University of Education. dergraduate level (including Chinese-foreign cooperative The rapid expansion of the scale of Hong Kong’s high- universities). However, overall, high-quality higher ed- er education has not led to a sharp decline in the quality ucation resources are scarce. Although Hong Kong is a of higher education. Hong Kong’s higher education has small city, it has abundant higher education resources and achieved overall improvement and development in talent several high-level universities. Macao, with the smallest cultivation, scientic research and social services, which area among the three regions, is a typical micro society. are mainly reflected in the steady improvement in the Its higher education scale is small and its higher education quality and employment rate of graduates, the rapid devel- resources are correspondingly limited. opment of scientic research and the rapid rise of univer- The following table shows the distribution of univer- sity rankings. The following table shows the rankings of sities in the greater bay area. From the perspective of the major universities in Hong Kong in 2018. geographical location, high-level universities in Guang- dong-Hong Kong-Macao greater bay area are mainly Table 2. World University Rankings of the key universi- distributed in 4 core cities, Hong Kong, Macao, Guang- ties in Hong Kong zhou and Shenzhen. Guangzhou has the largest number World University Rankings of university of 36, followed by Hong Kong and Macao, Name of University (2018) with 13 and 10 respectively. On the contrary, 7 central THE QS US News cities, such as Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Foshan, the University of Hong Kong 40 26 109 Zhaoqing, Dongguan and Huizhou, are relatively decient in high-level universities. The overall level is not high, the Chinese University of Hong Kong 58 46 148 the Hong Kong university of science and hence, it is difcult to support the huge demand of local 44 30 152 technology economic and social development of human resources, City University of Hong Kong 119 49 186 technology, and intellectual resources. Hong Kong Polytechnic University 182 95 234 Table 1. Distribution of universities in the greater bay Source: Sun, B.C. & Xu, N. (2018). Hong Kong’s Quality Assurance area measures and policy experiences of building “World-class Universities”. Tsinghua Journal of Education No. City Number of universities 2.2 Higher Education in Macao 1 Dongguan 3 2 Foshan 2 There are ten degree-conferencing institutions of higher 3 Guangzhou 36 education in Macao: The university of Macau, Macao 4 Huizhou 1 Polytechnic Institute, Institute of Tourism, Macao Secu- 5 Jiangmen 1 rity Forces Higher School, City University of Macau, St. 6 Shenzhen 4 Joseph’s University, Macao Mirror Lake Nursing School, Macao University of Science and Technology, Macao 7 Zhaoqing 2 Institute of Management and Institute of Chinese and 8 Zhongshan 1 Western Innovation. Due to historical reasons, the devel- Distributed under creative commons license 4.0 DOI: https://doi.org/10.30564/ret.v2i4.1224 19 Review of Educational Theory | Volume 02 | Issue 04 | October 2019 opment of higher education in Macao is relatively slow uate Business Administration programs in Greater Bay and the overall level is not high. However, the University Area in the following six nalized dimensions, curriculum of Macau, Macao University of Science and Technology and instruction; faculty; strategic planning; administrative and Macao Polytechnic Institute have achieved rapid de- management; student achievements; and resources (see velopment in recent years, especially the establishment of Figure 1). Hengqin campus of the University of Macau provides a new opportunity for its development. 2.3 Higher Education in Nine Municipalities in Guangdong Province From the specic situation of higher education resources in 11 cities in the greater bay area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, Guangzhou has the most abundant high-quality higher education resources among the nine cities in the mainland. Apart from Shenzhen University, Figure 1. Framework for measuring the quality of educa- the key universities and key disciplines in the construc- tional programs tion of high-level universities in Guangdong province are all located in Guangzhou, and the national “double rst- Source: Adopted from Horng, Teng and Baum (2009). class” universities are all located in Guangzhou. At the On the basis of two famous evaluation models: Con- same time, Guangzhou has set up Chinese-foreign coop- text-Input-Process-Product (CIPP) and Malcolm Baldrige erative schools. Higher education in Shenzhen is in the National Quality Award (MBNQA), a framework for mea- process of accelerating development. Shenzhen University suring the quality of educational programs was proposed has been included in the rst-class discipline construction by Horng, Teng and Baum (2009). CIPP was developed universities in