Futuros Desarrollos

The SMLs of private universities are associated with the power hierarchy which resembles the company organisation structure. They are managers of various departments, supervising academic and administrative operations, such as registry, examination, academic research, finance, branding, marketing, facilities, human resources, and international student affairs. The top-down approach, therefore, is applied in the power hierarchy of a private university where the SMLs design internationalisation policy, and inspect practice (Cho & Palmer, 2013). Their power can be extended across departments, or confined to a specific department. Similarly, internationalisation could be the main or minor part of the university departmental practice. For instance, the Vice President oversees the internationalisation policy and practice in many departments. Meanwhile, the senior manager of the international

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office coordinates oversea marketing campaigns with other relevant departments, and also looks after the welfares of all international students.

The Companies Act 1965 promotes collaboration between SMLs to maintain the power balance in the hierarchy. In order to monitor the power hierarchy, inspections that are a common corporate quality assurance practice is conducted on all the departments. Since the Malaysian PHEIs are registered as private corporations, inspections are applicable to the senior management of private universities for ensuring the standards of policy and practice. In the following extract of the Act, the clauses are connected through purpose and additive relations to emphasise the aim of an inspection and the power of an inspector.

Power to conduct inspection

7B. (1) PURPOSE For the purpose of ascertaining whether a corporation or any officer of a corporation is complying with this Act, the Registrar may have access to any place or building ADDITIVE and may inspect ADDITIVE and make copies of or take extracts from any book, minute book, register or document required by or under this Act to be kept by the corporation.

The clauses start with the purpose relations through the use of the marker “for the purpose of”, in order to justify the action of the university inspection officer. Given the purpose, the inspection appears to be more acceptable to the readers. Furthermore, the second and third clauses are in an additive relationship to provide supporting details of an inspection. They state what the Registrar is authorised to do during the inspection. In these clauses, additive relations are paired with purpose relations so that the latter is fully supported by additional yet necessary information of the inspection. As such, the coordinating conjunction “and” is used twice to join a number

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The Registrar is the legally assigned inspector to review the company compliance with the Act. Hence, the inspector has the power to access to any places and documents related to the university policy and practice. The objectives, which are to evaluate and enhance the quality of internationalisation policy and practice, underlie the interaction between SMLs (Pfotenhauer et al., 2013). As a form of peer evaluation, they often switch roles as inspectors or recipients. The inspection procedure is carried out on the university departments that implement internationalisation policy and practice. The marketing department, for example, is inspected for its international advertising practice and expenses. The internationalisation activities of academic faculties, such as the recruitment of international students and lecturers, and outreach programmes are also audited to ensure the compliance with the Act.

The repetitive use of paratactic and hypotactic relations between legislative clauses heavily emphasises the requirements of appointing company auditors, as shown in the following extract of the Act:

Company auditors

9. (1) A person shall not knowingly consent to be appointed, PARATAXIS and shall not knowingly act, as auditor for any company PARATAXIS and shall not prepare, for or on behalf of a company, any report required by this Act to be prepared by an approved company auditor—

(a) HYPOTAXISif he is not an approved company auditor;

(b) HYPOTAXISif he is indebted to the company or to a corporation HYPOTAXIS

HYPOTAXISthat is deemed to be related to that company by virtue of section

6 in an amount exceeding two thousand five hundred ringgit; (c) HYPOTAXISif he is—

(i) an officer of the company;

(ii) a partner, employer or employee of an officer of the company;

(iii) a partner or employee of an employee of an officer of the company; or (iv) a shareholder or his spouse is a shareholder of a corporation HYPOTAXIS whose employee is an officer of the company; or

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(d) HYPOTAXISif he is responsible for or HYPOTAXIS if he is the partner,

employer or employee of a person responsible for the keeping of the register

of members or the register of holders of debentures of the company.

The conjunction “if” provides the meaning of “on the condition that”, whereas “that” defines the subordinating clause “he is indebted to the company or to a corporation”.

These conjunctions intensify the requirements of appointing company auditors by attaching a number of dependent clauses (if-clauses and the relative clause “that” to the independent clause 9. (1). Hence, the independent clause 9. (1), which states the don’ts of appointing company auditors, is able to stand firmly with the supporting

details of dependent clauses. Through the use of these paratactic and hypotactic relations, private universities are provided with details of outsourcing the audit responsibilities to external, approved company auditors. Current university employees are forbidden to be the company auditors. As private universities generate own revenue, strong financial management is crucial to sustain its power hierarchy. This exhibits the neoliberal influence in internationalisation, shifting from bureaucratic- professional types of accountability to consumer-managerial models of higher education (Olseen & Peters, 2005). The techniques of auditing, accounting and management have become the new mode of regulations for private universities. The SMLs’ ability to exercise financial control in internationalisation activities of their own

department needs to be assessed by external company auditors. It produces unbiased and independent audit reports that appraise the university’s financial controls and

statements, thus empowers the SMLs to implement internationalisation policy and practice effectively.

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