ARTICLE IN PRESS

International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

A case study of a merger in Chinese higher education: The

motives, processes, and outcomes
Yinmei Wan, Marvin W. Peterson
The University of Michigan, 1559 Fairway Dr., Apt. 301, Naperville, IL 60563, USA

Abstract
This paper examines an institutional merger taking place in Chinese higher education beginning from 1994. Using the
case study method, the paper examines the pre-merger planning, the post-merger integration process, and the outcomes of
the merger. The paper argues that a number of major external and internal factors have led to the decision to merge. The
planning and implementation of the merger was largely a top-down process and subject to political intervention. One of
the most prominent issues identied in this case is the difculty of building a unied identity for the new institution as was
reected in the controversies and ghts about the name of the new institution. The case studied provides a good example
and valuable lessons to higher education institutions considering merger or other forms of organizational change.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Educational administration; Organizational change; Merger; Chinese higher education

1. Introduction
For Chinese higher education, the past decade
has been an era of unprecedented changes and
reforms. A variety of social, political, economic, and
technological forces have been reshaping the entire
higher education sector. Since 1992, the Chinese
government has launched a series of reform
initiatives to restructure its higher education system.
Merger is one of the most important means that the
government and higher education institutions
adopted in this process. According to the latest
statistics published on the Ministry of Educations
website, there were 424 mergers during the period
from 1990 to March 2005 (http://www.moe.edu.cn/
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 630 518 7040.

E-mail address: ywan@umich.edu (Y. Wan).

0738-0593/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2006.07.007

edoas/website18/info11206.htm). This merger wave

has changed the landscape of Chinese higher
education dramatically. It has involved nearly all
types of higher education institutions in China,
from the most prestigious national universities such
as Beijing University and Qinghua University, to
small local colleges at the bottom of the higher
education hierarchy of the country. Given the
strategic importance of higher education to the
social and economic development of the country,
there is no doubt that merger activity on such a
large scale will have signicant impact on Chinese
society.
This merger wave in China, however, has
attracted little attention from higher education
researchers. The limited amount of previous research on this topic largely focuses on the role of the
government in initiating changes by means of

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changing policies and regulations. There is a

signicant lack of research that studies merger
activity at the institutional level. This study is
intended to ll this void. The purpose of the study is
to examine the process of a higher education merger
in China and to reveal the important factors that
affected the process.
This study is designed to look into the creation
and transformation of Sichuan University (SU) in
Southwest China as a result of the merger of two
institutions in 1994. The study addresses a general
question: What major factors affected the merger
process and its outcomes? The data collection is
guided by the following sub-questions:
(1) What were the major external and internal
factors that led to the merger?
(2) How was the decision to merge made?
(3) What were the major factors that facilitated or
inhibited the integration process?
(4) What were the outcomes of the merger?

2. Research context
Chaffee and Tierney (1988) see higher education
institutions as seeking equilibrium between external
demands and the values and needs of the members.
Changes in colleges and universities are often
shaped by various external and internal forces.
Merger, as a radical form of institutional reorganization, is often an institutional response to such
forces.
In countries such as Australia, Britain, the
Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden,
governments have either mandated or encouraged
mergers by providing policy incentives so as to
rationalize their higher education systems (Fielden
and Markham, 1997; Goedegebuure, 1992; Harman, 1988; Hay and Fourie, 2002; Kyvik, 2002;
Skodvin, 1999). Harman and Meek (2002) identify a
variety of motives in governments promoting
higher education mergers, such as to increase
efciency and effectiveness, to widen access, to deal
with narrow specialization and institutional fragmentation, and to ensure that higher education
institutions more directly serve national and regional economic and social objectives.
Merger can also be a voluntary institutional
response to changing external and internal contexts.
In the United States, a number of conditions and

tensions, such as reduction in state and federal

allocations, the shrinking high school graduate
pool, and concerns about the efciency and effectiveness of higher education, led many institutions
to merge during the period from the late 1960s to
the early 1980s (Breuder, 1989). More recently
merger has become a common response strategy in
higher education nationally in the United States as
support for education dwindles. In Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington
and elsewhere, merger and program elimination
were a fact of life in the 1990s (Coffman, 1996).
Between November 2000 and June 2003 at least 12
college mergers were completed or announced in the
United States (Williams, 2003). A wave of merger
also hit the for-prot sector of higher education
(Borrego, 2001).
Higher education today to a great extent is still
facing many of the tensions and challenges that
have given rise to mergers in both the public and
private sectors in the past several decades. It is quite
likely that governments and higher education
institutions will continue to use merger as a means
to cope with these tensions and challenges. For
example, in Japan, as the population and enrollments dwindle, universities have started to consider
merger. According to an education ministry report
issued in January 2003, at least 35 of Japans 99
national universities are planning mergers within
the next 3 years (Brender, 2003). In China, new
mergers are being negotiated and implemented.
Taiwan is also considering consolidating its higher
education institutions so as to improve their quality
and prestige (http://news.xinhuanet.com/taiwan/
2004-10/27/content_2143614.htm).
There is no doubt that a critical understanding
of the past experience with merger is essential to the
success of higher education mergers in the future.
But unfortunately, in turning to the literature to
learn more about mergers in higher education, it can
be reported that fragmentation and incompleteness
is evident. In countries like Australia, Britain and
the Netherlands, merger as a policy issue has
received a great deal of scholarly attention. A
number of studies provide information about how
merger activity as a national policy was initiated
and implemented and the outcomes have been made
public (e.g.,Fielden and Markham, 1997; Gamage,
1993; Goedegebuure, 1992; Harman, 1988; Martin,
1996; Meek, 1988). A majority of the literature, however, focuses mainly on describing the
reasons why institutions merged. How institutions

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However, it was not viewed as denitive when the

study began. During the course of data collection,
other elements were also revealed as important to
the merger process.

implemented a merger and how integration was

achieved were dealt with to a much lesser extent.
Many researchers in higher education mergers have
noted the lack of serious theoretical and empirical
research in this area (Chambers, 1987; Eastman and
Lang, 2001; Goedegebuure, 1992; Mulvey, 1993).
The literature on mergers stresses that merger
denotes radical institutional changes. Many have
described these changes as drastic and dramatic
(Chambers, 1983; Millett, 1976; Mulvey, 1993). Not
only are the governing systems of the institutions
affected, but the souls of the partners involved are
also affected. Merger is by all means a complex
process. The tensions in the dynamics of this process
also center on factors associated with change in any
organization. Although each merger can be seen as
a unique arrangement between the institutions
involved, there are some common issues and
concerns that have emerged in all merger processes.
Some major concerns identied in the literature
include management and leadership, the reaction
and resistance of faculty and staff, communication,
the nancial implications, concerns about institutional identity and reputation, and the difculties in
merging diverse cultures (Cannon, 1983; Chambers,
1987; Martin and Samels, 1994; Millett, 1976).
Fig. 1 illustrates a framework that help how all of
these factors can be integrated to illuminates
understand higher education mergers. The framework provides guidance in examining the merger
process. It serves as a broad map for approaching
pertinent issues that have appeared in the process.

3. Research method
3.1. The case study method
The case study method is used for this study.
Merriam (1998) states that case study research is a
method designed to gain an in-depth understanding
of the situation and meaning for those involved. The
case study method uses an inductiveinterpretive
approach rather than the hypotheticaldeductive
research model (Van Maanen, 1998). This research
approach emphasizes process and context of a
phenomenon. The research goal is not focused on
prediction or control, correlation or causal inference, but interpretive understanding of a complex
phenomenon and the real-life context in which it
occurs. As a methodology, the case study method
fuls a unique role in research (Guba and Lincoln,
1989).
Yin (1994) suggests that the case study method is
favorable under three conditions: (1) the study asks
how or why questions; (2) the topic under
study does not require control over external events;
and (3) the study focuses on contemporary events.
According to Yins criteria, the case study method
seems to be a good t for this particular research.
First of all, the purpose of this study is not to test an

Organizational Factors
Size, Capazcity, Decision
making process,
Funding
External Forces
Government policies
and regulations,
Changing societal
conditions

Internal Forces
Strategic factors,
Economies of scale
/cost-saving

685

Planning the
Merger

Post-Merger
Integration

Merger
Outcomes

Human Factors
Leadership,
Institutional identity,
Employees reaction

Fig. 1. A conceptual framework for understanding Chinese higher education mergers.

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Y. Wan, M.W. Peterson / International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

existing theory or a preconceived hypothesis on

institutional merger, but rather to seek to understand the merger process (how it has occurred).
Second, merger is widespread in higher education
and can be studied by an active observer without
control over the change. Third, merger is denitely a
contemporary topic. Finally, the case study method
is a useful methodology to investigate and explain
the causal links in real-life situation that are too
complex for survey or experimental methods
(Merriam, 1998), and higher educations merger is
no doubt such a complex process.
3.2. Description of the case
The case selected for this study is SU, the largest
university in Southwest China formed through the
merger of the former Sichuan University (abbreviated as SCU so as to differentiate from the postmerger institution SU), Chengdu University of
Science and Technology (CUST) in 1994 and later
joined by Huaxi Medical Science University
(HMSU) in 2000. This study focuses only on the
1994 merger between SCU and CUST. The merger
of SCU and CUST in 1994 is the rst case of merger
between two key national universities of comparable prestige and capacities in China and is
considered by some researchers as one of the most
troubled mergers (Chen, 2002). SU is now one of
the biggest universities in China in terms of student
enrollment, faculty population, and research capacity. The evolution of SU in a sense is an epitome of
the development of Chinese higher education in the
past decade, which makes it a valuable case to
study.
3.3. Data collection
The research strategy for this study incorporates
documentary analysis, the personal interview method and observation. Multiple sources of information are sought and used because no single source of
information is adequate to provide a comprehensive
perspective on such a complex process. Using
multiple sources of information also allows triangulation of data collected so as to build stronger
assertions about the merger process (Creswell,
1998). Documents and archival records are used to
identify and understand major concepts, concerns,
trends, and events concerning the merger process.
The semi-structured interview method is the primary method of data collection in this study. The

interviews are semistructured in that the questions

are constructed in advance but the interviewer can
change the questions and the mode of asking or
following up according to his or her discretion
(Hammer and Wildavsky, 1989). When studying
organizational changes in higher education, it is
necessary to obtain the many views of the change
through the experience of those involved in the
change. This is even more important in studying a
merger since it involves people from different
organizations. In this particular case, people originally came from two institutions and it is critical to
listen to different voices and obtain different
perspectives. The purpose of the interviews was to
have members of the two institutions reect on the
merger process and report in detail their attitudes,
feelings, and opinions concerning the merger.
Given the design of the study, my goal in these
interviews is not to gain a representative statistic
sample of opinions of people involved in the merger
process. Instead, the purpose of the interviews is to
expand my understanding, capturing and generalizing emerging themes and patterns. Therefore
purposive sampling (Creswell, 1998) is used to select
informants. Purposive sampling is a strategy to
select the most information-rich participants. In this
case, following a preliminary investigation of both
institutions and discussions with an assistant president of SU and the director of its Research and
Development Center, 15 individuals were identied
as potential informants for the initial phase of the
interview. Individuals were chosen based upon their
ofcial standing in their institution and upon their
degree of involvement in and knowledge of the
merger process. This sample is mainly composed of
top-level administrators and academic deans from
both institutions.
After several rounds of contact with the potential
interviewees, ten of them agreed to participate. All
interviews were conducted in Chinese. Four of the
interviews were tape-recorded with the consent of
the participants, and later transcribed. The interviewer kept detailed notes of the other six interviews. In addition to formal interviews, the
researchers also had informal conversations with
other members of the organization, including
faculty and staff member, students, and alumni.
3.4. Role of the researcher
One of the researchers was a graduate student at
SU between 1995 and 1998 and then worked there

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from 1998 to 2001. Her prior experience with SU

was an advantage when the study started. It helped
the researchers to get access to the site. Also because
of this prior knowledge, the researchers were
familiar with the general context of the study so
that they could ask critical questions while remaining sensitive. At the same time the researchers are
aware of the potential undue inuence of this
previous experience on the study because of any
prior biases about the institution.
3.5. Limitations of the study
One of the limitations of this study is caused by
the mortality effect, namely, the loss of individuals
from a group, thereby making it no longer
representative (Krathwohl, 1997). As this study
covers a period of about 10 years, some of the key
participants of the merger process were not available for interview. The long reference period
(19942003) constitutes another limitation of this
study. The long recall period might inuence the
accuracy of some factual data. Moreover, since the
merger between SCU and CUST took place in 1994,
the participants perceptions and evaluation of the
process might be more of retrospective sensemaking. Another limitation of this study is related
to the inherent difculty in studying a complex
organization such as a university. There is always
the possibility of uncovered information and
untapped perspectives due to time and other
constraints. Sometimes the untold part of the story
may be disparate, incompatible or even contradictory to the data collected. Fortunately, our
previous experience and familiarity with SCU may
to some extent make up for this uncertainty.
4. Findings and discussion
This part of the paper reports the ndings of the
case study. It follows the sequence of pre-merger
planning, implementation of the merger plan, and
evaluation of outcomes. Key concerns and issues in
this process are identied.
4.1. Why merge?
4.1.1. Pre-merger connection between the two
universities
The connection between the SCU and CUST can
be dated back to the 1950s. SCU was founded in
1931 by combining several existing higher education

687

institutions in the city of Chengdu. At the time of its

founding, SCU was one of the 13 national
universities in the country and the only one in
Southwest China. By 1949, with six colleges (arts
and humanities, sciences, law, engineering, agriculture, and education), 25 departments and a student
population of 5300, SCU was one of the most
prestigious universities in China. However, in the
nationwide restructuring in the 1950s SCU was
dismantled and reorganized. Four colleges (education, law, agriculture, engineering) were either
merged into other institutions or separated to form
new independent specialized colleges. The remaining two colleges, together with some colleges and
academic departments in arts, humanities and
sciences in other universities in the region, formed
the new SCU, which was positioned as a comprehensive university of arts, humanities and sciences
directly under the Ministry of Higher Education.
Chengdu Polytechnics Institute (CPI), the predecessor of CUST, was founded in 1954 as a result
of the same nationwide restructuring process. It was
composed of the engineering schools of a number of
universities in Sichuan Province and nearby provinces, including the engineering school of SCU.
CPI was renamed as CUST in 1978 and was
administered by the Chinese Academy of Science.
In 1980, the State Education Commission (SEC,
later renamed as Ministry of Education) took over
and CUST became an institution directly administered by the SEC.
The campuses of SCU and CUST were only one
street across from each other. Geographical proximity is generally considered to be one favorable
condition for mergers (Norgard and Skodvin, 2002;
Skodvin, 1999). That might be what was going
through the minds of the leaders of the two
universities when they were considering the possibility of a merger. The spectrum of academic elds
of the two institutions, however, was very different.
As a comprehensive university with strong programs in arts, humanities and sciences, SCU was
known for its academic excellence in disciplines such
as history, Chinese linguistics, archeology, and
mathematics. CUST on the other hand was a
polytechnic institution and was nationally and
internationally recognized for its research in macromolecule material, textile, hydraulics, and chemical
engineering. However, since the 1980s both institutions had been expanding its academic offerings. In
addition to setting up programs in burgeoning elds
such as business management and information

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management, SCU started new programs in applied

sciences and technologies while CUST started new
programs in natural sciences, humanities and social
sciences. By the early 1990s, the size of the two
institutions was almost the same in terms of student
population (both about 12,000), the number of
faculty and staff (both about 3500), as well as the
size of their campus.
4.1.2. Impetus for the merger: external factors
The idea of merging SCU and CUST was rst
proposed by the Sichuan provincial government and
the State Education Commission in the 1980s. The
two institutions held some preliminary discussions
about it but failed to give it serious considerations.
Both institutions were then too occupied with their
own expansion and other reform initiatives. Then
why were the two institutions willing to reconsider
the idea of merger in the early 1990s?
When asked about the reasons for the merger,
nearly all the institutional leaders interviewed
started with explaining how the social and economic
development of the Chinese society called for
reforms of higher education institutions. The
1980s saw a rapid expansion of higher education
in China. However, the expansion took place
without paying sufcient attention to the costeffectiveness and economies of scale. Higher education then was characterized by small size with an
average enrollment of only 1922 in 1988 (Min,
1991), low studentstaff ratio (5.3:1 in 1988
according to China Education Yearbook, 1989),
and low unit cost. This mode of expansion put
serious nancial constraints on higher education.
Moreover, Chinese higher education in the early
1990s still retained many characteristics of the
Soviet system. Particularly, college curriculum was
still divided along narrow specializations. By then it
was generally recognized that students prepared by
such a narrow curriculum lacked exibility and
would have difculty meeting the needs of the
changing world. The Chinese government was also
aware of the need to restructure its higher education
system into a more efcient and effective one.
In 1993, the government revealed its determination to restructure and reform higher education in
an ofcial document entitled The Outline for
Educational Reform and Development in China
(hereafter referred to as The Outline). Various
reforms were proposed in The Outline. The
objectives of the reforms were described as follows
(Ministry of Education of China (MOE), 1993):





diversication of the sources of funding for

institutions of higher education;
decentralization of the administrative structure
and expansion of university autonomy; and
reconstruction of universities for efciency,
effectiveness, and reasonable expansion.

The one policy proposed in The Outline that had

signicant implication for institutional merger was
Project 211. The purpose of the Project was to select
100 universities and a number of academic elds in
which the government would concentrate its nancial support in order to achieve academic excellence.
Although not stated in the ofcial announcement, it
was understood that the rest of the institutions
would be transferred to provincial or local governance, which might mean declining funding and
reputation as well. The Project revealed the governments determination to build some world class
universities. It effectively introduced competition
among higher education institutions. Many universities and colleges began to deliberate the possibility
of merger in order to be included in the list of the
favored 100. In the early 1990s, six or seven other
institutions in the same region with SCU and CUST
were considered to be their peer institutions with
comparable reputation and capacity. Project 211 to
a great degree pitted these institutions against each
other in the competition for a position in the
Project.
It may seem obvious that Project 211 introduced
competition among higher education institutions,
but participants interviewed for this study disagreed
about the extent that the concern about Project
211 had inuenced the decision to merge. Some
talked about competition in a very general and
abstract way, not willing to cite Project 211 as
directly driving the decision to change. Others
would claim that SCU and CUST merged for the
simple reason of strengthening their position in the
competition for the Project. In fact an interviewee
believed CUST would have no chance to be
included in the Project if it had not merged with
SCU. But of course all interviewees from CUST
disagreed about that. Despite the disagreement the
interviewees all agreed that the merger almost
guaranteed the new institutions position in the
Project because the newly formed university would
become the largest university in the country and was
too important to be left out of any central
initiatives.

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4.1.3. Impetus for the merger: internal factors

A number of internal factors also made merger an
attractive idea. First of all, the historical connection
and geographical proximity of the two institutions
were considered to be two advantages that would
make it easier for the constituents of the two
institutions to accept the merger and thus would
smooth out the integration process. In fact the two
institutions had engaged in a great deal of cooperation even before the merger. For example, many
student activities and events were open to students
from both campuses. The information exchange
between the two institutions was also quite frequent.
In Chinese universities, since most students and
staff members (and their families) lived on campus,
the social life of the two institutions was in fact
highly integrated even before the merger. One of the
participants mentioned how the blood ties of the
two institutions had been built because of the high
rate of intermarriage between employees of two
campuses:
The children from the two sides went to the same
schools. They played together and grew up
together. Many of them ended up marrying each
other. We are actually in-laws.
In planning for the merger, such close relationship between the two institutions was regarded as an
enormous advantage by the decision makers.
Second, as was mentioned earlier, both SCU and
CUST had tried to expand their academic offerings
since the 1980s. As a result, SCU in the early 1990s
had added new programs in computer science,
chemical engineering, bioengineering and other
elds of applied sciences. CUST on the other hand
had added programs in basic sciences such as
mathematics, physics, chemistry and some in
humanities and social sciences. But after about 10
years development, most of these new programs
remained marginal in their institutions. Both
institutions realized that this mode of expansion
was a waste of the limited resources. Without some
fundamental changes in the forms of inter-institutional cooperation, neither institution could fulll
its ambition of achieving national or international
fame within a short period of time. This urged the
leaders of both institutions to come up with new
ways of cooperation. As the curricula of the two
institutions were perfectly complimentary to each
other, a merger appeared to be a viable option.
Complementariness in academic offerings has been
identied as one important feature conducive to

689

merger success in studies on higher education

mergers in other countries (Goedegebuure, 1992;
Skodvin, 1999). And the leaders of the SCU and
CUST clearly recognized this.
Finally, the merged institution would become the
largest university in China then in terms of student
population and the scope and range of academic
offerings. The Chinese higher education system is
driven by status and reputation and characterized
by a process of cumulative advantage in which
institutions with a high status and with good
reputation are rewarded with more resources.
Under such a system, the enlarged capacity would
mean more attention and funding from the government. The decision makers of SCU and CUST were
well aware of this. As one participant described, In
China, the governments funding to higher education has always been to make the rich richer.
Under such a principle, a substantial increase in
state funding to the new institution was expected if
the two institutions were to merge.
4.2. Planning the merger
4.2.1. Making the decision to merge
Facing the external pressures and considering the
various favorable conditions for a possible merger
between the two institutions, the President and
Party Secretary1 of SCU and CUST rst proposed
the idea of merger in November 1992 at a
conference attended by college and university
presidents in Sichuan Province. The idea was given
serious consideration and won general support from
the high-level administrators of both institutions. A
preliminary agreement about the merger was
reached between the Party Committees2 of the two
institutions. In January 1993, President and Party
Secretary of both institutions conveyed the idea of
the merger to Governor and Vice-Governors of
Sichuan Province and obtained their support. In
February, a proposal was submitted to State
Education Commission and won the support of
the Commission leaders. In May, the merger
obtained its formal approval from the State Education Commission. In the meantime, Sichuan provincial government agreed to support the new
1

In Chinese universities, Party Secretary and President are two

top executive positions. Normally they are two parallel positions
with separate responsibilities but arguably equal status.
2
In Chinese institutions, Party Committee is the highest
decision-making body headed by Party Secretary. The Committee
is usually composed of high-level administrators.

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Y. Wan, M.W. Peterson / International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

institution in the form of joint construction.3 It

promised to provide 150 million yuan (about US$
18 million) to the new institution to help it with its
bid for Project 211.
It can be seen that the decision to merge SCU and
CUST was made in a surprisingly short period of
time and was made through an entirely top-down
process. No open effort was made to engage the
faculty and staff in the decision-making process.
They were formally informed of the decision only
after it was made nal, although rumors had
circulated before that. Once the decision to merge
was made, there seemed to be no way to reverse the
course of action. Such a process of decision making
would have signicant impact on the implementation of the merger, which will be discussed later in
this paper.
4.2.2. Making merger plans: it is about the name
A task force was soon created in May 1993 to
make plans and preparations for the merger. The
task force was comprised of mainly administrators.
Some urgent issues to be resolved were identied,
including: (1) to choose a new name for the
institution; (2) to develop a new governance
structure; (3) to develop a new academic structure;
(4) to make timetables an implementation plans; (5)
to set up the layout of the new campuses; and (6) to
make the new budget.
With the effort of the task force, all the planning
seemed to have gone smoothly except for naming
the new institution. A name is critically important
to an organization (Linenkugel, 2001). From a
name, identity is derived and reputation is created.
In the merger of SCU and CUST, since the two
merging partners had similar capacity and reputation, it seemed proper to use a new name for the
new institution rather than adopting the name of
either institution. While the leaders of both institutions agreed to this, it proved difcult to discard
well-recognized names. This was especially true for
SCU employees. For them the glories and emotions
attached to the name Sichuan University, which
had been in use for about 60 years, were too strong
to be given up. Moreover, while the pre-merger
3

Under the arrangement of Joint construction (Gongjian),

the provincial government and the State Education Commission
exercise a dual leadership over the institution. While the central
government still provides the bulk of funding for the institution,
the provincial government will provide extra funding in the
amount that is agreed by negotiation between the State
Education Commission and the provincial government.

name of CUST no longer tted the new institution,

that of SCU still tted the new institution well
because of its inclusive nature.4 But naming the new
institution SCU would be considered appallingly
unfair and therefore unacceptable to the CUST
community. According to one of the interviewees
from CUST, in the negotiation about the new name
for the institution, the representatives from SCU
adopted a strategy of escape by not suggesting
any new names themselves but vetoing any name
that the CUST representatives proposed. As a result
the negotiation relapsed into stagnation for quite a
long time. The task force later tried collecting
recommendations from the community, but no
agreement could be reached on this. The dispute
had seriously delayed the planning process of the
merger and it was eventually resolved only with the
intervention from the provincial government. In
November 1993, the two parties agreed to name
the new institution Sichuan Union University
(Sichuan University & Chengdu University of
Science and Technology) (abbreviated as SUU in
this article) as proposed by Governor and a Vice
governor of Sichuan Province.
People from both sides were not satised with the
name. For one thing, adding parentheses to a name
was unconventional in naming an organization and
sounded rather awkward. For another, some
thought the word union had negative connotations in the Chinese contextit sounds like the
combination of several institutions of lower quality.
Several other universities in China with the name
union university were generally considered to be
of inferior quality. In addition to that, both sides
worried that the name had poor social recognition
and would lead to a decline in applications to the
university. Nevertheless, since neither SCU nor
CUST could provide a better choice agreed upon
by both sides, the name proposed by a powerful
third party (in this case, the provincial government)
was accepted. On 8 April 1994, the merger of SCU
and CUST was formally announced.
4.3. Post-merger integration
Merger often involves fundamental changes in
administrative and academic structures. The greater
the organizational changes required by the merger,
4
Sichuan is the name of the province. In China, being named
after the name of the province usually denotes an exclusive
prestige and indicates the importance of the institution.

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the greater the need for more complex interventions

to help manage the integration process (Buono and
Bowditch, 1989; Napier, 1989). Failure to achieve
integration will impede merger performance(Jemison and Sitkin, 1986). In the merger between SCU
and CUST, the integration of the two institutions
took longer than most people had expected.

4.3.1. Integrating the governance structure

The governance of both pre-merger institutions
followed the two-level structure of university and
department. When the merger was considered, it
was agreed that such a two-level structure would no
longer t the new institution due to its huge size.
Thus, a three-level structure (universityschool/
collegedepartment) was adopted by the newly
formed institution. Under such an arrangement,
the old departments were consolidated and restructured into 14 colleges. After 2 years, however, some
serious problems of the new three-level structure
were identied.
First, most of the 14 colleges were formed by
simply combining several existing departments
without real integration. The old departmental
boundaries still existed and the division of power
and responsibilities between schools and the departments under them was rather fuzzy. As a result
coordination and further integration within schools
were very difcult. Secondly, the schools and
colleges were formed within the boundary of two
pre-merger institutions. Little cross-institutional
combination and integration occurred. This made
the integration supercial and few duplicate programs were cut as a result of the combination. The
expected outcome of the merger in terms of better
utilization of resources failed to realize. Thirdly, due
to the addition of one more level to the governance
structure, the number of middle level administrators
increased dramatically. This ran counter to the
objective of improving administrative efciency by
reducing the number of administrators. Thus,
compared with the pre-merger two-level structure,
the new three-level structure lacked efciency as well
as effectiveness.
Faced with these problems, the university readjusted its structure in 1997 by strengthening the role
of the school-level administration and set clear
division of authority between schools and departments. But the schooldepartment conict remained
visible. For quite a long time, the center of power
kept shifting between schools and departments.

691

The turning point came in 1998 when a new

President took ofce. At the same time, the Ministry
of Education began a new round of systematic
review of existing academic programs nation wide.5
Taking advantages of this opportunity, SUU made
fundamental changes to its governance structure.
Within half a year, as a result of the reorganization
the number of middle level administrators was
reduced by half. The number of schools and colleges
increased from 14 to 22, with schools and colleges
now established as administrative entities and the
role of departments reduced to that of pure
academic units. Some duplicate programs were
eliminated and as a result the number of undergraduate programs was reduced from 93 to 75.
Despite some frictions in the process, the new
structure was fully established in July 1998 and
remained functioning until the present.

4.3.2. Re-emergence of the naming issue

The name for the new institution Sichuan Union
University (SUU) was a lesser choice from the
very beginning. Many of the worries about the
possible negative effects of the new name were
proved to be real immediately after the merger. In
the 2 years after the merger, the number of students
applying to SUU suffered from serious decline. The
low social recognition of the new name was held
responsible for that. One of the interviewees told the
researcher about an embarrassing experience of his
in which he was treated as someone from some
negligible institution when he went to another
province to recruit students.
By the end of 1996, the calls for a better name
were voiced through various channels. Senior
faculty members, alumni, the local congress representatives, and students wrote to the university
administration and also the Ministry of Education,
asking for a name change. Some people even took
more radical means such as distributing yers or
brochures on campus. Different rumors about the
issue spread in and outside of the university. Local
media also covered various stories about the naming
issue. To quote one of our interviewees, the
naming issue has become the topic of the town.
The institutional leaders who planned for the
merger told us they had not anticipated that the
5
In Chinese higher education system, every new academic
program must be approved by Ministry of Education (MOE).
MOE makes the directory of academic programs and majors.

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Y. Wan, M.W. Peterson / International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

naming of the institution would cause such turmoil

and turbulence. Finally, the issue attracted the
attention from the central government that exerted
enormous pressure on the institution to come up
with a solution. But the institution eventually failed
to provide a solution that could satisfy all. At their
wits end, in July 1997 the Party Committee of SUU
decided to hand the issue over to the Ministry of
Education and accept whatever name it designated.
With the direct intervention from then Vice
Premiere, Mr. Li Lanqing, a decision was nally
made: the name of the institution was to be changed
from Sichuan Union University to Sichuan University. He stressed that naming the institution
Sichuan University was by no means simply
adopting the name of the pre-merger Sichuan
University (SCU). Instead, the new name not only
reected the respect to the history of both institutions, it also implied an extension of the historical
missions of both institutions. By shifting the
responsibility to the central supervising body, which
had absolute power over the institution but at the
same time was considered to be an impartial third
party in the dispute, opposition from either of the
pre-merger institutions was expected to subdue.
Despite that people from CUST still felt it to be a
loss on their side. Many considered the institutions
decision later to build the central administration
building and the main entrance on the original
CUST campus as a means to make up for that loss
for the CUST community.
The dispute about naming in the merger of SCU
and CUST has attracted wide publicity nationwide.
It seriously impeded the integration of the two
institutions. Nearly all the interviewees agreed that
the dispute had cost the new institution 4 years of
time, in which the institution did not make any
substantial progress in integration. Quite a number
of interviewees believed that the education quality
of the new institution actually declined and its
management deteriorated in those 4 years. The
dispute around the name and the resentment it
aroused among employees on both sides were often
cited as primarily responsible for this. When
reecting upon this, one interviewee said, This is
a heavy price we paid. Four years for such a small
matter! This, however, sounds like some hindsight.
The decision makers in both institutions had never
anticipated the degree of turmoil that could be
caused by the naming issue. Even if they had, it is
doubtful whether this could have been handled
differently. After all, naming an organization,

especially a cultural organization like a university,

is by no means a small matter.
The turbulence about naming the new institution
in the merger of SCU and CUST provided a
valuable lesson to many Chinese institutions that
were involved in mergers after them. Premier Li
noted at a conference on higher education that the
naming issue must be solved before any merger
started. In 1998, when the rst law on Higher
Education in China was drafted, it stipulated that
naming colleges and universities was essentially a
right of the government. Many believed that the
experience of SCU and CUST merger directly
precipitated the formulation of this stipulation.
4.3.3. Balancing the power
One of the most challenging tasks the leaders of
the new institution faced was how to balance the
power between the two pre-merger institutions in a
way that both sides would deem as fair and
impartial. The two institutions being comparable
in size and capacity was identied as a major factor
that made this task extremely difcult. As one
participant described,
If a small institution merges with a bigger one, in
most cases the merger will be dominated by the
larger institution. This might be unfair to the
smaller institution, but the whole process would
probably be much easier. The situation between
SCU and CUST was that both were afraid that
the process would be dominated by the other and
were therefore not willing to make the rst step
to compromise.
The most intense ght for power was seen in the
appointment of high-level administrators. Trying to
avoid the accusation of favoring either side, a
balanced strategy was adopted in the process. The
strategy put more emphasis on balancing two sides
rather than on selecting the best candidate for a
certain position. Thus, the President of the CUST
became the President of the new institution and the
Party Secretary of SCU became the institutions
new Party Secretary. Take the example of the
appointment of senior administrators for nancial
affairs. If the Vice President for nancial affairs was
from SCU, then the Director for the ofce of
nance must be from CUST,6 and two of the three
Associate Directors would be from SCU, the other
6

The Director of the Ofce for Finance is immediately under

the Vice President for nancial affairs.

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Y. Wan, M.W. Peterson / International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

one from CUST. This rigid arrangement appeared

to be fair to both sides, but at the cost of
administrative effectiveness. As it stressed the
balance of the two sides, it often failed to place
the best candidate in a position. To make matters
worse, the subordinate staff members were also
divided along the old institutional lines. Thus rather
than promoting integration of the two institutions,
this arrangement actually enhanced the we vs.
they mentality that is common in organizational
mergers (Astrachan, 1990; Blake and Mouton,
1985). It made cooperation and coordination more
difcult. It is interesting to notice that when
reecting upon such an arrangement, many of the
institutional leaders interviewed considered it to be
unwise. Yet, as one of the interviewees stated,
At the time all of us knew that was kind of silly.
But under the Chinese circumstances, what else
could you do to satisfy both sides? There must be
some kind of balance. I think the resulting
inefciencies can be considered to be the price
that the reform must pay.
Such an arrangement remained in effect until
1998, when the new president launched another
round of reorganization, trying to break the old
institutional division.
4.3.4. Funding the merger
Many mergers aimed at cost-saving. Yet research
on higher education mergers reveals that mergers
actually incur considerable costs (Skodvin, 1999).
Without extra funding support, it is difcult to
implement many of the merger plans. That was true
in the merger of CUST and SCU. For example, the
cost of staff development was necessary as a result
of the merger. A heavy investment was also needed
in order to integrate IT systems and networks in
academic, library and administrative areas. There
were also substantial costs involved in bringing
departmental staff together. Yet government support to the new SU did not increase as was expected.
In the 3 years following the merger, the institution
only obtained an extra 8 million yuan (about US$ 1
million) from the government, 5 million of which
was spent on the building of a campus network.
Moreover, when the central government allocated
resources among institutions, the new SU was
treated as one institution and had therefore only
one share instead of two as it was before the merger.
The overall resources allocated to the new institution suffered from serious decline from the pre-

693

merger years. As a result, not only many of the

merger plans could not be implemented, even the
daily operation of the new institution was affected.
As one of the informants commented, We were in
fact forced to make meals without rice.
In August 1997, the then Minister of Education,
Mr. Zhu Kaixuan made a visit to the new SU. He
was shocked by the predicament of the institution.
Mr. Zhu was said to tell the leaders of SUU,
In the merger of Sichuan Union University, the
state owed a huge debt to the institution. I
promise that after I return to Beijing I will try all
means to seek funding for the institution, at least
tens of millions, and to give you the support you
need for the merger!
Zhus words cheered up the community and more
importantly he did fulll his promise. Since December 1997, the central and provincial government has
provided a substantial amount of funding to the
new institution. Many of the projects planned
before the merger were nally brought on the
institutional agenda.
4.3.5. Employees reaction
Previous research has generally shown that
employees react unfavorably to mergers, a result
often cited to explain why many mergers are not
successful (Cannon, 1983; Hay and Fourie, 2002;
Hay et al., 2001). Why are employees reactions to
mergers so negative? First, research from a psychological perspective has identied such problems as
we vs. they mentality, condescending attitudes,
distrust, tension, and hostility(Astrachan, 1990).
Second, mergers can severely affect career plans of
employees by forcing layoffs, relocation, and the
loss of individual inuence. Finally, culture clashes
are not uncommon during the integration process of
two organizations with established routines each.
All these reasons can be used to account for the
negative employees reaction to the merger between
SCU and CUST. In this particular case, however,
one additional factor also contributed to the
negative reaction of employees, namely, the lack
of employees participation in the decision-making
process. The merger process was characterized by
too many top-down processes and too few
bottom-up processes. Faculty and staff had no
part in making the decision to merge. In implementing the merger plan, although the decision-makers
did from time to time seek opinions and suggestions
from the community, yet under the governance

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Y. Wan, M.W. Peterson / International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

structure of the university, to what extent were the

opinions from the bottom taken into consideration
in the decision-making process depended largely on
the leadership style of individual leaders. There was
no formal channel for those opinions to be
expressed collectively so as to be reected in
institutional polices.
The lack of transparency in the decision-making
process and the poor communication between the
institutional leaders and the community were no
doubt detrimental to the integration process. In the
rst 4 years following the merger, uncertainties and
disruptive changes resulted in considerable resistance to change. Many people were not satised
with the process of merger and were disappointed
by its outcomes. Doubts about the viability of the
new institution were widespread. Senior employees
tended to express their opposition and resistance in
a more direct way by writing to the supervising
agencies or arguing with the university leaders. A
story repeatedly told by the interviewees is about
how one of the most senior faculty members
allegedly dashed into the ofce of the new Dean
of Arts and Philosophy and started the conversation
by saying You know nothing about arts. However most people resorted to more passive means to
express their dissatisfactions (e.g. disobedience,
shirking, low commitment to the new institution,
or distrust in top management). As a result of these
negative feelings and reactions, implementation of
the merger could not be accomplished as planned
and integration was extremely slow.
By the end of 1997, 4 years since the merger was
announced, it seemed that the process had been
disappointing and frustrating to most people
involved. All the participants in our study agreed
that the merger had been a total mess during those 4
years. None of the expected synergies had been
realized. The reputation of the university suffered
enormously as was reected in the declining
numbers of applications. The institutional leaders
were too occupied in dealing with various conicts
brought about by the merger that little attention
was paid to improve the quality of teaching and
research. Some of the participants believed that the
educational quality actually declined in those 4
years.
However, all our interviewees agreed that late
1997 and early1998 was a turning point in the
merger process because of two new developments:
(1) in December the naming issue was nally settled
with the intervention from the central government;

and (2) in January 1998, the Ministry of Education

announced the appointment of a new President to
the university. Mr. Lu Tiecheng, the new President,
was also appointed as Party Secretary of the
institution. Mr. Lu had worked in both the
provincial government and the central government
before he took up this position. Since he was
someone from the outside and appointed from
the above, he was expected to be neutral and
therefore fair. The community accepted Lus leadership soon after he took ofce. A new round of
reforms and reorganizations aimed at the further
integrating two institutions were initiated by Mr.
Lu. With more funding support from the government, these initiatives produced positive outcomes
instantly.
4.4. Merger outcomes
The outcomes of higher education mergers are
usually examined along two major dimensions:
administrative, managerial efciency and effectiveness, and academic outcomes. This study will also
examine the outcomes of the SU merger from these
two perspectives.
4.4.1. Administrative, managerial efficiency and
effectiveness
Cost efciency is one important basis for creating
larger institutions (Rowley, 1997). However, no
effective measures have been developed to assess
this dimension of merger outcome. This is especially
true in Chinese higher education institutions where
decisions are usually not made based on solid data.
In this particular case, it is extremely difcult to
measure the cost-efciency of the institution. For
one thing, no such data are available to measure the
administrative cost prior to and after the merger.
For another, a number of other dramatic changes
took place in the late 1990s as a result of change in
higher education policies in China, which makes it
difcult to evaluate the effects of merger separately
and make valid conclusions. However as has been
described in the previous sections, this objective of
cost-efciency was clearly not borne out in practice
before 1998. The situation after 1998 is less clear
since no data are available.
On the other hand, the administrative effectiveness of SU was called into question by many of the
people the researchers interviewed either formally or
informally. The academic deans complained about
the lack of autonomy at the school level. They

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Y. Wan, M.W. Peterson / International Journal of Educational Development 27 (2007) 683696

hoped more power would be devolved to schools.

Particularly, the budgeting mechanism was considered too centralized to provide incentives and
exibility to schools. They suggested that creative
modes of governance and management be developed as the post-merger institution was too big for
the old governance and management structure to be
effective. Again merger is not solely responsible for
these problems. For instance, the drastic expansion
of the enrollment between 1999 and 2002 to a large
extent exacerbated this problem.
4.4.2. Academic outcomes
One of the objectives of mergers is to create larger
and better academic institutions in terms of both
teaching and research. In this respect, results from
this case study are much more positive. The most
signicant benet of the merger is the enhanced
academic portfolio. At SU, the integration of
academic structure is now accomplished to a large
extent, although not without tensions and conicts
in the process. The new institution now gives more
breadth and choice to their students. There are clear
indications that the merger has improved the
academic position of the new institution, especially
in regard to the breadth of different education.7
However, most of the interviewees expressed their
regret about the 4 years of turmoil and turbulence
from 1994 to 1997. For some this was too dear a
price paid and they wished the transition period
could have been shorter. But others argued that the
cost was inevitable given the circumstancesNo
better way could have been found to deal with the
tensions, conicts, and difculties encountered in
the process. Could the result have been better?
There is no way to verify this. Besides, as one of my
interviewees commented,
It is still too early to evaluate and assess the
outcomes of the merger. The long-term effect of
the merger is still to be seen. The next generation
or perhaps the generation after will be in a better
position to make any judgment.

695

5. Conclusions
This paper examines why and how a merger
happened in Chinese higher education. It shows that
the decision to merge was driven by a variety of
external factors and internal factors. Not surprisingly, the merger was a highly complex process
fraught with conicts and controversies. Perhaps
the most prominent issue emerging in this case is
about the difculty of building a unied identity for
the new institution as was reected in the controversies and ghts about the name of the new
institution. This issue aroused a great deal of
negative feelings and reactions in the planning and
implementation of the merger and seriously impeded the progress of the merger in the rst several
years.
At the time when the interviews were conducted,
it was almost 10 years since the merger was rst
announced. Sichuan University (SU) was involved
in another merger in the year 2000, this time with
one of the best medical universities in the region.
However, even with the second merger SU is no
longer the largest university in the country. A
number of mega-universities emerged as a result of
the merger wave in the late 1990s. Despite the
detours SCU and CUST had taken, when asked
about whether they now think merger was the right
decision, all of the participants of my study
answered positively. They said that given the trend
of Chinese higher education in the late 1990s, SCU
and CUST would have had to merge anyway.
Compared with other merged universities that are
still struggling with integration, SU has gone one
step ahead and is now in a better shape to reap the
benets that merger is expected to bring about.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Mr. Changwen
Zhao, Mr. Cheng Zeng and Ms. Xiaoyan Wan in
the Development Research Center at Sichuan
University for their generous help in our eld work.
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According to the ranking by a non-government research

agency in 2003, Sichuan University is ranked as No.10 in terms of
its comprehensive capacity. For contrast, Southwest Jiaotong
University and University of Electronic Sciences and Technology,
two of the peer institutions in the same region, are ranked as No.
52 and 56, respectively.

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