How Do Public Higher Vocational Colleges Practice MixedOwnership Under High Environmental Uncertainty in China?

--a Multi-case Study from Perspective of Institutional Entrepreneurship

Yiqing He; Haisheng Pan; Shibin Wang; Ximei Han

School of Education, Tianjin University

Abstract: The mixed ownership practice of higher vocational colleges can be regarded as institutional entrepreneurship under high environmental uncertainty guided by the national policy. Based on the institutional entrepreneurship theory, a multiple-case study method and open coding strategy are applied to:①entangle therelationships among institutional entrepreneurialagents that participate in mixed ownership practice in higher vocational colleges from longitudinal and cross sectional perspectives; ②identify the enabling conditions that drive institutional entrepreneurship behavior on both field and organizational level;③establish a matching model between institutional contradictions and practical strategies based on second-order themes that are aggregated from first-order items;④establish a four-stage process model for mixed ownership practice of higher vocational college; ⑤analyze the positive and negative effect of mixed ownership practice. This study not only expands the adaptive boundaries of institutional entrepreneurship theory in a special public-private mixed, yet non-profit context in China, but also provide practical implications for government and colleges to promote vocational education by establishing mixed ownership secondary schools.

Keywords: Higher vocational colleges mixed ownership institutional entrepreneurship