^aDepartment of Educational Administration and Policy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT Hong Kong

Correspondence: Manhong Lai, E-mail: mhlai@cuhk.edu.hk

Abstract

In an attempt to raise China's international competitiveness, the government instituted a series of sweeping reforms to expand rapidly the number of higher education places. Rapid growth, however, gave rise to a new set of problems, namely, a scarcity of resources, poor educational quality and underemployment of Chinese university graduates. In order to tackle the problems caused by rapid expansion in higher education, a number of measures were introduced, all influencing the work of academics. Based on the observations of our study, we can see a clear trend of deprofessionalization due to increasing state supervision. Because of the widespread scarcity of resources, academics found themselves taking on the additional role of academic capitalist, in order to increase their incomes and accumulate academic capital. However, in the specific context of China, guanxi still served as a significant factor for academics in retaining their academic status. New measures should be introduced in order to alleviate the great impact of guanxi.