| dc.description.abstract | This study explores the ways in which Lund University (Lund) and the University of Oslo (UiO) employ their respective institutional websites for international student recruitment, both at the institutional level and at the level of individual degree programs, as well as how it relates to the modes of institutional governance at these two universities. Following a comprehensive review of literature on relevant topics, an analytical framework was developed by drawing on some well-established theories in the fields of higher education governance and international student recruitment. Thereafter, a qualitative content and discourse analysis was carried out on Lund’s and UiO’s institutional websites, and the findings revealed some interesting similarities and differences between these two universities. With a relatively large degree of institutional autonomy from external forces, UiO recruits international students based on predominately academic rationales. This is demonstrated by the university’s institutional website, through which UiO promotes its institutional identity as a primarily academic institution dedicated to education and scientific research and views prospective international students as academic novices to be integrated into their respective disciplinary communities. In comparison, institutional governance at Lund is subject to stronger influence of external forces and there is an important economic rationale behind the recruitment of international students. While constructing its institutional identity as a service enterprise embedded in the competitive higher education market, Lund also addresses prospective international students as rational and calculative consumers with the power of choice. This is demonstrated by the adoption of a wide range of modern corporate marketing and communication techniques on its institutional website in order to create a distinctive brand image, appeal to the perceived needs of student consumers and place the university in a favorable position against its competitors. That being said, there is a certain degree of decentralization at both Lund and UiO, where individual faculties and disciplines have retained the autonomy to construct and promote their respective sub-identities. Once again, this corresponds well to findings from the institutional website analysis for both universities, where considerable differences were observed not only between the faculty-level and university-level webpages, but also among the faculty-level webpages of the four individual degree programs. This study shed light on some rather interesting aspects of institutional governance in the context of international student recruitment. First, for universities that have adopted a more market-oriented approach at the institutional level (as is the case of Lund), the implementation of modern corporate marketing and communication techniques could be limited at the faculty and disciplinary level. Second, when it comes to universities that have remained committed to the Humboldtian principle of freedom of teaching and learning at the institutional level (as is to a large extent the case of UiO), some faculties and disciplines (e.g. Economics and Social Anthropology) could take advantage of their individual autonomy to adopt modern corporate marketing and communication techniques and participate more actively in the competitive markets of higher education. In addition, this study confirmed the potential of institutional website analysis as a viable research method in the study of higher education institutions and presented a sound analytical framework that could be used to guide the empirical investigation process. That being said, in order to achieve a better understanding of the relationships between the institutional website, international student recruitment and the mode of institutional governance, it would be helpful in future research to combine institutional website analysis with some other research methods such as surveys, focus-group discussions and semi-structured interviews with relevant personnel from the central administration as well as individual faculties and disciplines. | eng |