Universities as strategic navigators: place leadership in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area
研究了粤港澳大湾区中大学如何在政治不对称的跨境区域创新系统内扮演战略导航者角色，通过比较七所大学的管理策略，揭示了大学在服从国家与把握机会、本地认可与全球声望之间的平衡方式。
This article investigates university place leadership within the context of a politically asymmetrical cross-border regional innovation system – China’s state-steered, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. We conceptualise place leadership as a process of strategic navigation, where universities manage two sets of tensions: (1) the strategic posture between state compliance and organisational opportunity and (2) the locus of their legitimacy between local political endorsement and global academic prestige. Based on a comparative analysis of seven universities, we develop a series of navigational profiles, revealing how universities mobilise resources and shape visions, offering insights for the study of place leadership and cross-border innovation.