In diverse Chinese societies, donation practices have traditionally been understood as personal, religious, or charitable acts rather than collective responsibilities supporting public institutions such as higher education. Consequently, philanthropy has rarely been institutionally linked to universities’ social responsibilities. This study addresses a central governance question: how do governments, through leadership and policy instruments, transform individualized donation cultures into collective actions supporting higher education’s public responsibilities? Adopting a government leadership perspective, this study conceptualizes social responsibility as an outcome of institutional design rather than voluntary moral commitment. Methodologically, it employs comparative document and policy analysis, examining laws, policy directives, and official documents related to higher education fundraising in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Mainland China to identify how governance arrangements institutionalize social responsibility. The findings reveal contrasting leadership pathways in how social responsibility is defined through higher education fundraising. In Singapore and Hong Kong, government leadership reframes donations as participation in universities’ public missions rather than individual generosity, using policy instruments to attach collective purposes to private giving and reshape university–society relations. In Mainland China, social responsibility is constructed through administrative leadership and foundation-based governance, embedding donations within state-articulated social agendas under centralized coordination. By contrast, Taiwan illustrates the limits of partial decentralization, where fundraising responsibilities are assigned to universities without a clear governance framework defining donations as a public obligation, constraining the institutionalization of social responsibility. This study demonstrates that government leadership plays a key role in shaping how social responsibility operates within higher education fundraising under similar cultural conditions.

Authors:
Yi Hua Lin, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Lin Yi-Hua is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Management at the National Taipei University of Education. Her research expertise and long-term research interests include higher education policy, vocational education policy, education resource allocation and education finance issues, and fairness and justice issues in the implementation of education systems and policies. She is currently working on a project concerning university endowments and endowment funds.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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