‘To go or not to go’: organizational determinants of academic staff participation in teaching mobility – a structural equation modelling approach

Within the framework of the higher education internationalisation agenda, academic mobility has become a prevailing policy pillar in most universities, engaging both students and teaching staff. A growing body of literature investigates students’ experiences as the outcome of various mobility programmes. However, the encounters of teaching staff are still uncharted territory to a considerable extent. This study investigates precursors of staff mobility for teaching (SMT) in conjunction with three organisational attributes – learning organisational behaviour, support for SMT and strategic focus of institutions on internationalisation. We hypothesise that these organisational features are interrelated and have an impact on the probability of staff participating in mobility programmes for teaching purposes. We employ a structural equation modelling (SEM) with Maximum Likelihood estimation on data from a survey conducted in the framework of the Teach with Erasmus+ project from 745 academics in Europe. Findings support our argument that recognizing and understanding the relevance and interdependency of organisational learning and strategic support contribute to the creation of an inclusive and responsive climate encouraging SMT.