Faculty Perceptions of Power Distance, Value Cohesion, and Lived Experience in a Sino-British Joint Venture University

Transnational Education (TNE) at the university level is commonly evaluated through visible pedagogical and institutional mechanisms, including quality assurance, curriculum alignment, and degree legitimacy. Less attention has been given to the socio-cultural conditions through which faculty experience power in Joint Venture Universities (JVUs). This article examines power distance as a lived institutional practice at an anonymised Sino-British JVU in mainland China, drawing on 32 semi-structured faculty interviews, as part of a wider paired-site qualitative study. The interview schedule was informed by Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Compass. Interviews were analysed inductively, with Hofstede used experimentally as a sensitising analytical framework rather than as a measure of national culture. This article presents findings on the power distance dimension and identifies four organisational themes—authority, hierarchy, inequality, and networks—which are presented as finding-led groupings rather than formal sub-dimensions of Hofstede’s power distance. Faculty described and perceived power as an everyday professional experience shaped by control over teaching, regulation, and institutional direction; chains of command and indirect disagreement; inequalities in voice, promotion, favouritism, funding, language, and gender; and informal networks affecting access, visibility, and professional boundaries. These accounts indicate that power is produced through the intersection of Chinese regulatory conditions, institutional centralisation, professional status, and informal relational norms. The article argues that greater attention to these relations is essential for understanding faculty voice, autonomy, and value cohesion in Sino-British TNE partnerships, and thus offers leadership recommendations towards strengthening cross-cultural value cohesion.