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<p>Against the background of China’s Double First-Class Initiative, quantitative indicators have become the core tool of China’s higher education governance. Based on in-depth interviews with 19 colleges of a local university, this study reveals the transmission mechanism, adaptive strategies and in-depth consequences of “indicator-based governance” in grassroots academic organizations. The study finds that when quantitative indicators are transmitted to the college level, they have not been transformed into endogenous motivation for disciplinary development, but have spawned three structural tensions due to misalignment with the logic of disciplinary growth: indicator alienation, conflict between unidimensional evaluation and disciplinary diversity, and polarization of resource allocation. In response to these tensions, colleges have developed two types of adaptive strategies, namely strategic breakthrough and informal adjustment. However, the cumulative effect of these strategies is a fundamental reshaping of governance logic, characterized by the breakdown of the feedback loop in university governance and the managerialization of academic leadership. The theoretical contributions of this study lie in extending the ranking theory from the context of market competition to the context of China’s bureaucracy, supplementing the micro-foundation for the “hybrid governance model” of China’s higher education, and conducting a typological expansion of the institutional responses of marginal colleges.</p>

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Tension and adaptation under the indicator-based governance: how the Chinese double first-class initiative reshapes the governance logic of local universities

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月26日

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  • Xuyan Wang,
  • Leixia Xue,
  • Lingli Zhang

摘要

Against the background of China’s Double First-Class Initiative, quantitative indicators have become the core tool of China’s higher education governance. Based on in-depth interviews with 19 colleges of a local university, this study reveals the transmission mechanism, adaptive strategies and in-depth consequences of “indicator-based governance” in grassroots academic organizations. The study finds that when quantitative indicators are transmitted to the college level, they have not been transformed into endogenous motivation for disciplinary development, but have spawned three structural tensions due to misalignment with the logic of disciplinary growth: indicator alienation, conflict between unidimensional evaluation and disciplinary diversity, and polarization of resource allocation. In response to these tensions, colleges have developed two types of adaptive strategies, namely strategic breakthrough and informal adjustment. However, the cumulative effect of these strategies is a fundamental reshaping of governance logic, characterized by the breakdown of the feedback loop in university governance and the managerialization of academic leadership. The theoretical contributions of this study lie in extending the ranking theory from the context of market competition to the context of China’s bureaucracy, supplementing the micro-foundation for the “hybrid governance model” of China’s higher education, and conducting a typological expansion of the institutional responses of marginal colleges.