Governance of agents in the recruitment of international students : a typology of contractual management approaches in higher education

There is an increasing reliance on international education agents for student recruitment in Higher Education (HE), but the governance of education agents is under-researched. This study explores contractual governance approaches adopted by HE institutions for managing international education agents in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of survey data from HE managers was undertaken involving contractual specificity, coordination, within-contract monitoring, relational contractual governance, market power and number of agents used. It produces a typology of four archetypes: strategic hybrids, pragmatic operators, flexible friends and laissez faire operators. The study reveals that, while the laissez faire approach is a path to failure regardless of the number of agents used and market power, there is no ‘one-size fits all’ linear contractual governance solution to agency problems and the achievement of results. The findings enable HE managers to better understand their agent management choices and associated outcomes. © 2020 Society for Research into Higher Education.