Staffing UK University Campuses Overseas

Introduction

As part of their broader internationalization strategies, in recent years some universities have established an overseas presence in the form of international branch campuses (IBCs; McBurnie & Ziguras, 2009). One estimate is that there are now around 200 of these across the world (Lawton & Katsomitros, 2012), although the number varies according to the definition used (Lane & Kinser, 2011). American universities have the most IBCs, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. The Middle East has in the past been the main host region but Asian countries, notably China, India, and Malaysia, are currently the primary centers of activity. The reasons for establishing IBCs, given demands for the provision of such university places from host countries, include generating revenue, creating international brand recognition, the appeal of “soft power” through contacts with graduates and business in host countries and, more recently in the United Kingdom, the imposition of stricter home country visa regulations for international students (Observatory on Borderless Higher Education [OBHE], 2012). The type of IBC varies. They include relatively small, niche market, predominantly research based campuses, and specific discipline-orientated teaching establishments, as well as potentially major multifaculty institutions.

Our concern in this article is with the staffing issues confronting UK IBCs. Most of the IBC literature emphasizes the interaction between public and private international educational institutions (Lane, 2012; Lane & Kinser, 2011) or the more general management and strategic issues arising from IBC establishment (Shams & Huisman, 2012).What seem largely to have escaped attention are the staff mobility and recruitment issues which arise from the expansion of UK universities into multinational sites. Shams and Huisman (2012), for example, discuss the staffing of IBCs only in relation to how the balance between home and host country recruitment affects the adaptation of the curriculum to local norms and regulations, but do not consider how staff to do this are recruited and managed. Fielden and Gillard (2010) recognize some of these problems, particularly relating to secondments of staff from home to overseas campuses, but there has been little consideration of the relationships between institutions’ longer term business models in establishing IBCs and the international staffing policies required to sustain them.

This article examines the staffing issues likely to be faced by UK universities as their international campus presence grows on the basis of the experience of established multinational enterprises (MNEs). It is very much an initial exploration of a subject upon which there has inevitably been little research. Most effort in the United Kingdom has gone into exploiting its universities’ teaching reputations by recruiting overseas students to UK campuses, and through programs of distance learning and accreditation. The few cases where overseas campuses have recently been established thus represent a new stage in the internationalization process. We here focus on a small number of these, examining the human resource management implications of the need to move away from their habitual staffing models designed for single UK-based institutions.

MNE International Staffing Strategies and the Development of Mobility Portfolios

As their internal labor markets (ILMs) become more multinational, UK universities may need to acquire some of the staff mobility characteristics acquired by commercial MNEs. In recent decades the “portfolios of mobility” of these have rapidly evolved away from the traditional “colonial model”, based on expert expatriates dispatched to run overseas operations, employing local staffs only to carry out more routine tasks. Nowadays, with more diverse markets and growing competition, expert human resources are increasingly regarded as globally available and mobile. The international control and movement of expertise now depends on a variety of forms of exchange, including short-term secondments, short or extended “business travel” visits and even regular commuting, each set within a growing dependence on “virtual” exchange through telecommunications (Salt & Wood, 2012). At the same time, much greater emphasis is being placed on the host country recruitment and training of key staff, who are likely to be more familiar with local market, regulatory, cultural, and political conditions. MNE staff, whether in headquarters or overseas branches, are therefore expected to participate in various forms of exchange to support international projects. The MNE staff deployment process is also increasingly oriented to drawing appropriate experts from its international ILM, often regardless of their “home” or “host” country origins.

Portfolios of mobility must be dynamic, needing to match available expertise to shifts in patterns of exchange and the needs of multiple projects or process cycles. In mature MNEs, for example, the early stages of collaborative projects require frequent high-level contacts, based largely on business travel, to build trust and carry forward planning. Long-term staff assignments may follow, with combinations of seconded and visiting senior and specialist staff, and the training of local labor in management and sales roles where needed. Finally, the further localization of recruitment may require fewer expatriate assignments and greater reliance on short-term movements and virtual exchange. At any time several projects may be under way, requiring flexibility in the use of specialist experts between them. Mobility is also integral to international talent development, so there is often a symbiotic relationship between the project needs of the company and the career aspirations of individuals.

In the corporate world, some aspects of staff mobility are fairly general, others are sector specific (Millar & Salt, 2008; Salt & Wood, 2012). University experience is likely to be closest to that of the consultancy and associated IT sectors. For both, their product is knowledge rather than a material good, providing international clients with services on a fee basis. Their international reputations depend on how effectively they move expert staff to deliver such services. For commercial “knowledge intensive” services, initial reliance on expatriates in new market areas must be quickly complemented by “local knowledge”. International practice is adapted to the needs of different countries through the training of local staff and collaboration with host country institutions (Wood & Salt, 2012). Even as they do this, however, such MNEs may also draw on international experience from other branches, not just from the “home” country. This is the model of international staffing that now predominates among international business service MNEs (Brewster, Sparrow, & Harris, 2005; Collings, Scullion, & Morley, 2007; Jones, 2009).

What, then, may be the implications of this experience for the future international portfolios of mobility of traditionally national-based and public sector-supported universities? Obviously some important differences are to be expected. Internationalization is integral to the purpose of MNEs, and major consultancies already have office presences in most economically significant countries. In contrast, UK universities have only recently embarked on a small number of substantial overseas campus projects. Like consultancies at similarly early stages, our sample institutions assumed a “colonial model”, based on the relocation or secondment of UK staff. As we shall see, however, they quickly moved to international recruitment, although, unlike MNEs, they were not able to draw on an established international operational network.

The criteria of success may also appear to be different. For MNEs, these are ultimately financial, with overseas investment coming generally from their own sources on the basis of anticipated returns in relation to other projects. In contrast, UK universities usually evince wider social and intellectual purposes. Financially, however, there are strict limitations on the risk-based investment of their funds, so that they must seek partners to finance overseas campuses. Such arrangements are sensitive to the high costs of expatriate assignments and intensive quality control, and may create pressures from investors, for example towards lower cost or market-led forms of growth. Financial criteria are thus still likely to be important to the form taken by IBCs. While there are certain to be differences, therefore, between emerging university and current MNE portfolios of international mobility, the latter may still indicate some of the pressures to which the former will be exposed in the longer term.

Aims and Method

From this perspective, the establishment of overseas campuses by UK universities prompts two main questions:

To address these questions, we draw upon two detailed earlier surveys of the international recruitment and staff mobility policies of MNEs, in 2005-2006 and 2009, involving some 40 firms across several sectors of the economy (Millar & Salt, 2008; Salt & Wood, 2011, 2012; Wood & Salt, 2012). Ancillary material was derived from a separate survey in 2007-2008 of 16 MNEs on their attitudes towards the recruitment into their global human resources of international students at UK universities. In all cases, interviewees were senior HR managers. For the present study we interviewed pro-vice-chancellors and other staff at four UK universities in late 2011 and early 2012, to explore how their IBC staffing strategies and practices had evolved up to that point. ¹ The IBCs involved were of several types, including large joint institutions and integral branches of the home university, involved in teaching and research, specialist research with teaching, and teaching only.

The article first reviews the context within which the establishment of overseas campuses by UK universities is now taking place. It then examines their approaches to staffing overseas campuses in the short period of their development over the past decade. We conclude that there is no single template of international human resource development for either MNEs or universities but that the experience of the former provides some pointers for the future human resource requirements of university overseas campus development.

The Internationalization of UK Universities

The capital investment and expert human resources of UK universities are predominantly directed to UK requirements, with a high dependence on public funding for both teaching and research. Overseas campus ventures, in some senses, are therefore a novelty, involving possible changes of corporate, academic, and administrative culture. In pursuing them, however, they are building on a well-established UK university brand which has already been widely exploited in recent years through the internationalization of teaching.

Much of this has been through the attraction of students to the United Kingdom, amounting to 428,000 in 2010-2011, 298,000 from outside the European Union. About half were postgraduates and the main source countries were China, India, Nigeria, and Malaysia (UK Council for International Student Affairs [UKCISA], 2012). Such recruitment, in GATS terms “Mode 2” service trade through the movement of consumers to the service, has promoted significant change in academic and administrative culture for UK universities since the 1990s. Even larger numbers, 503,700, were studying for UK degrees abroad, taught through various combinations of distance learning and partner organizations. This means that 15% of students studying for UK degree qualifications were located abroad, supported by GATS Mode 1 trade (“cross border supply”), based on electronic communications and short-term UK staff mobility. If such a “trading” presence offers opportunities for further market entry in the form of campus development, countries such as China, India, and Malaysia are among the most promising targets for such a GATS Mode 3 and 4 ² presence. By 2011, there were over 12,000 student places in UK overseas campuses (UKCISA, 2012).

In research, of course, UK universities have long been involved in collaboration between different institutions and countries. This has generally been characterized by short-term visits for research discussions, sabbatical periods, and the permanent recruitment of senior specialists, sometimes accompanied by other members of research teams. However, there remains no comprehensive information on the aggregate extent and nature of international research activity, the sources of national and international funding to support it, or its consequences for international staff mobility (Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills [DIUS], 2008). Although there are some exceptions, such as UCL in Qatar, the high levels of UK-based international research exchange appear so far to have had limited influence on patterns of overseas campus development, mainly because research exchange has been predominately with universities in the developed world. In future, where there are rapidly developing new university systems, as in China, research collaboration, with associated graduate training, may become a growing stimulus to new forms of campus development.

The Establishment of Overseas Campuses: Human Resource Implications

Establishing an overseas campus requires the initial secondment of key staff to support initial confidence-building as well as the negotiation, establishment, and operation of overseas sites. These processes must conserve the quality of the services provided, as perceived by overseas governments, other collaborators, and potential students, while also adapting them to foreign legal, regulatory, political, and social norms. ³ Success depends on an ability to continue recruiting staff with the right academic and administrative expertise, able to reflect the quality ethos of the parent institution while adapting to working in a non-UK context.

Some of the detailed staffing implications of these ventures have been summarized by Fielden and Gillard (2011). A critical experience, confirmed by our respondents, was difficulty in persuading home-based UK staff to move abroad for more than a short and temporary period. This was a barrier to initial “colonial” approaches not generally encountered by MNEs. It meant that greater reliance than initially expected was often placed on recruiting new lecturers internationally. Universities were therefore faced with the challenge of tapping global networks and labor markets, and inducting such staff into the “home campus” ethos. In principle, such an ethos also requires a complementary research environment, although this was generally regarded as a longer term goal. This nevertheless implied the early appointment of some research active staff to overseas campuses, with support for research facilities and project funding, generally in collaboration with local research institutions. Local collaboration was also necessary to overcome regulatory problems, including immigration and visa formalities and legal issues affecting employment contracts. Fielden and Gillard concluded, significantly from our perspective, that university managers and human resource specialists need to acquire the skills and techniques of multinationals if they are to avoid the risk of reputation damage through poor quality delivery of teaching programs (Fielden & Gillard, 2011, p. 38). They also identified one of their key differences from MNEs, however, which generally support new projects from their “home” and global staff complements and do not need to rely on international recruitment.

University Staffing Strategy at the Outset

University overseas campus operations are usually undertaken with one or more partners or “client” collaborators, either a private company, another university institution, or a government agency. As a Pro-Vice Chancellor (PVC)initiating IBCs in Malaysia and India declared: “There are as many ways of partnering as there are partners”. Various common requirements nevertheless need to be satisfied. First, even when commercially financed, the policy support of host governments is necessary. Then, the need for institutions to spread risks, both financial and educational, is influenced by the partner role, especially in long-term planning. These requirements especially involve continual senior administrative and professorial staff liaison, and close attention to quality control in the delivery of teaching programs and assessment. Third, as for private companies, local knowledge is required, especially about the education system, including schools and established higher education institution (HEI) programs, and the legal and political context in which they will have to operate. Universities generally preface their operations by sending administrative staff on short and extended business visits to liaise with partner institutions. Fourth, as we have seen, public and private providers of capital may wish to influence staffing policies, including the share of international staff employed at local rates, rather than high-cost expatriates. Minimum quotas of local staff may also be required in some cases (Shams & Huisman, 2012). Chinese authorities, however, while requiring overseas universities by law to partner local institutions, also expect high proportions of teaching staff to be nonlocals teaching in English (cf. Fazackerley, 2007). While this has involved some permanent transfers from the United Kingdom, most of these have had to be recruited internationally.

In MNEs, staffing strategies are integral to corporate internationalization. Overseas expansion and new developments are based on established HR models designed to respond to changing circumstances, with skilled staff regarded as part of the company’s global internal labor market. The universities we surveyed recognized that they needed to give greater thought to longer term international staffing models. Initial strategies were generally ad hoc, with their sustainability uncertain. As one senior administrator put it, “A lot of people were having extra things to do to support it.” In one case, where specialist postgraduate teaching was initially supported by sending staff out on a relatively short term basis, “We’re gradually shifting this model so that we’ve got more permanent staff located abroad.” [PVC]

The development of a staffing strategy seems often to have been inhibited in the early stages by uncertainty about the eventual scale of the operation. In such circumstances, events determined how the approach evolved. Uncertainties also influenced the nature of academic contracts. At the outset, no staff had overseas postings written into these, and universities were being paid by clients for staff on a daily consultancy basis. This was quickly realized to be too costly to be sustainable. With hindsight, institutions felt that alternative staffing models might have been applied earlier.

If we were to do it again it would be interesting to see if we could persuade people to go out in the early stages of their careers to set up the framework, because the most (currently) research active people tend not to want to do something like that. [PVC]

As Fielden and Gillard showed, all institutions expected secondments from the parent to be a major element in setting up and delivering services at overseas campuses during the initial phase and beyond, but in practice too few staff were willing to participate. The primary reason was apparently the perceived threat to career opportunities.

I think the uncertainty at the very start and the very small size of the campus was probably a bigger factor in whether people wanted to risk their research reputation. [HR manager]

This contrasts with commercial experience, where overseas assignments are not only part of employment contracts but seen as steps in both individual and organizational career development. One university institution commented that good people do not want to go abroad while, at another, secondment was seen as quite peripheral: “It’s not what they signed up to do” [PVC]. The financial cost of secondments to the institution was also an issue.

We quickly realized that the cost base (UK salaries plus a premium) would not support what we were hoping to do. So our original business plan quickly changed—It was a steep learning curve! [PVC]

In consequence, the main initial secondments were of senior managers with responsibility for setting up arrangements. Subsequently these were involved in ensuring the maintenance of standards. Academic staff who were prepared to be seconded overseas were more likely to be those regarded primarily as teachers, for example in languages, rather than researchers.

It’s common in language teaching to teach abroad—this is a plus for the CV. Therefore, it’s easier to persuade people to go abroad because it is seen as career development. [Head of Department]

Others were staff whose research careers seemed to have stalled in the home institution.

You do find that there is a group of staff that perhaps are not cutting it research wise who are good teachers and also good citizens and they are willing to go. [PVC]

The shortage of secondment volunteers resulted in other staffing solutions being adopted, for example through the use of postdocs rather than those in more mature career phases. They seemed more willing to move, not only in light of a tight home labor market but also because of their greater openness to overseas employment as a positive curriculum vita (CV) move, although the advantages vary across disciplines.

In most other cases, greater recourse than expected had to be made to the international recruitment of staff, contracted directly to the overseas institutions and drawn from a wide range of countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, other European countries and the United States. For the most part these were taken on as permanent recruits to the new institution with no right of secondment or a permanent move to the United Kingdom. In almost all cases they were not regarded as integral resources to the university as a whole, for example through eligibility for redeployment when vacancies occurred in the home institution. Nevertheless, some respondents, like MNEs, were contemplating their future labor resources in global terms:

It’s possible we will be trying to share staff between partners, not necessarily back to [home institution], but to India, Malaysia and China and that’s true also of some of the programmes we are trying to develop. [PVC]

For MNEs, career development is often inherent in international moves. This is formalized in contractual arrangements, succession planning and, often, detailed HR monitoring. In UK universities, international mobility so far appears to be ad hoc, with staffing plans largely ignoring how movement might relate to the individual’s career. In some cases, new types of contract were set up for those being seconded or transferred abroad. In others, existing contracts were used, without stipulating the long-term expectation of overseas moves. HR departments, largely geared to domestic staffing, apparently lacked the experience and staff databases that might allow overseas staff movement to be coordinated, or to include internationally appointed staff. One institution, however, had become aware of the need to develop a pensions system for those who spend time in other jurisdictions.

A three-way tension has emerged between the arrangements needed to set up the overseas operation as an integral part of the domestic institution, to satisfy the requirements of partners/sponsors, and to ensure the career development ambitions of IBC staff in ways that might encourage them to embrace the “home campus” ethos. While the initial requirement for teaching could be satisfied on a UK-based contract, staffing strategies needed to develop business models appropriate to recruitment for different IBCs. Experience in one overseas location may also not be directly applicable to others, requiring a flexible approach even among different academic departments within an institution.

Corporate experience offers no clear model for universities to emulate. Knowledge-based MNEs seek primarily to exploit the multiple roles played by key global staff, moving for long- or short-term visits while relying on modern communications and adapting their expertise and business practice to diverse cultural and institutional contexts. Projects increasingly require both international and “host” country expertise, with workplaces involving multiple locations, including international employer and client offices and intermediate sites of exchange such as conferences, hotel suites, or airports. In consultancies, where an individual may simultaneously be working with several clients, a matrix management system often supports complex patterns of staff and expertise deployment. Individuals may experience various types of mobility during their career and also be engaged in several methods of knowledge exchange with different sites at more or less the same time. Employment contracts usually contain mobility clauses, while company HR databases, as well as intranets, support the integration of internal labor markets and may also be used for career development and succession planning.

Some of this experience may be familiar to senior university staff involved in establishing IBCs. Our evidence suggests that UK university mobility portfolios have so far not evolved very far in these directions. Although universities were in the forefront of the development and use of modern communications, they are beset by a reluctance of UK-based staff to move abroad, with a consequent reliance on international recruitment to IBCs. Corporate experience suggests that these practices are not compatible with the long-term goals of overseas expansion, especially as a basis for close relationships between home and overseas operations. Maintaining quality control, expanding teaching programs and developing research relationships will require more integrated and managed staffing strategies, adopting at least some of the practices of MNEs. As intercampus relations become established these are likely to change, but how, and in which direction, need to be clearly thought through.

Discussion

At the beginning of this article we posed two questions. First, how far are UK universities becoming like multinational commercial companies with respect to international staffing? The answer is, “to a limited extent”, since they are increasingly recruiting internationally and recognizing the need for new contractual arrangements, including for future UK-based staff.

We have, however, identified several key differences. First, at present universities seem to lack the infrastructure to manage the specific challenges of overseas staffing. In MNEs, international staffing strategies have evolved in association with their international business models, driven by commercial imperatives. The pace of new developments has meant that such strategies often change on an ad hoc basis and may be subsequently regularized, if acceptable, as corporate practice. Universities may find it difficult to be similarly flexible in the evolving situation they are likely to face. For example, lecturers with home course teaching and research responsibilities may not be able to respond to new overseas contingencies as they arise.

Second, universities and MNEs currently have different approaches to career development. In MNEs most international assignments have either an overt or tacit career element. For many university academics career progression depends on individual research profiles, which may often not benefit from extended secondment abroad, away from networks of colleagues or access to laboratories. An HR manager at one of our institutions also commented:

“I don’t think culturally HEIs are at that point where academics would accept being bound contractually to work where required for the greater good of the institution. Academic freedom, research opportunities and independence stand so much higher as essential values than the corporate good.”

This is a major reason why many teaching staff in overseas campuses have had to be recruited from outside the United Kingdom, with weak contractual ties to the home institution or requirements to undertake research. Established academic leaders or specialist administrators, however, are less constrained by the research imperatives placed on early–mid career staff. Indeed, their prospects may be enhanced by the experience of moving abroad.

Third, therefore, the “organisational career” approach (Schein, 1978), adopted in many MNEs, seems unlikely to be acceptable in the foreseeable future for UK university staff. This views secondment and other forms of mobility as integral to working for the organization. For MNEs, international mobility, including secondments and business travel, tends to involve senior and middle managers, as well as technical or sales specialists, whose interaction with clients affects the success of projects. Skilled individuals recruited directly to overseas sites also tend to be regarded as corporate human resources, available to move elsewhere when necessary, depending on client and project requirements. For the most important staff and their families, reward packages are also generous.

Fourth, in general, MNEs need to respond to the uncertainty of future opportunities, and anticipate considerable “contingency”. This may support some dislocation between their international business models (e.g., to grow in as many markets as possible) and their HR response. While many of their responses may initially be ad hoc, corporate conventions and structures emerge in the medium–long term to coordinate operations across countries through standardized procedures, usually introduced by international parent companies. This ensures the eventual alignment, for example, of assignment expense packages, business travel costs, career assessment procedures, or centralized project and staff databases.

Our second question asked what lessons universities might draw from the experiences of MNEs. On the whole, with the commitment of all parties to an overseas operation, the commercial environments universities face should be stable and predictable compared to commercial market conditions. On the supply side, however, UK universities have not yet evolved the long-term conventions of HR practice adopted by MNEs. While the limited scale of our survey precludes definitive answers, some pointers may be identified.

First, the medium–long term human resource implications of international campus operations need to be thought through. The skill set required for setting up an overseas campus is very different to running an established institution, so that universities “need to identify, develop and nurture these skills sets as part of talent management programs sufficiently in advance of the setting up of the campuses” (HR manager). With internationalization, staffing requirements must be readily adaptable to whatever business models are planned for the IBCs in the longer term—whether these are teaching or/and research-based; aiming to be specialist or multidisciplinary; on a comparatively large or small scale; separatist or integrationist in relation to the host country higher education system; and how interdependent with, or independent of, the parent institution they may eventually become. In any of these cases, and especially if different elements are to be combined, appropriate HR policies will need to be planned well ahead to ensure that expansion or diversification is compatible with maintaining quality and satisfying clients/collaborators. Some unexpected components have already been required, notably the scale of international recruitment. Others will need to be anticipated, for example in reviewing domestic staff contracts; planning the range of subject teaching; phasing local recruitment; accommodating financial pressures on quality; adapting to trends in student recruitment; and determining the direction of research. Whatever the trajectory, the success of overseas campuses will require a coherent approach to the various aspects of human resource planning.

Second, in the corporate sector firms have traditionally networked with each other in respect of overseas staffing, consulting on costs and benefits and the conditions faced in particular countries. Our impression is that, despite some strategic sensitivity, exchanges of information already take place between UK universities including those concerning HR problems (see, for example, OBHE, 2012). As the academic internationalization process develops, these exchanges will need to become more formalized, both within the university sector and with the commercial world.

Third, perhaps the most important consideration in developing HR policies is for universities to address a central dilemma in transmitting their home-based “institutional DNA” abroad. This seems to be universally regarded as the key to the success of overseas campuses, but is potentially at odds with reliance on international recruitment for teaching. A major element of the culture of our sample of institutions, embedded in the United Kingdom’s research assessment and staff promotion regimes, is that for the most part undergraduates, and certainly postgraduate students, are taught by research active staff. For staff seconded abroad, permanently transferred or internationally recruited, sustaining perceived quality without similar conditions may become increasingly difficult. International staff recruited directly to IBCs may be less imbued with the UK research ethos. It is possible that overseas campuses will develop their own “DNA”, based on semi-autonomous, teaching-based staffing models, with the linkages between “home” and “away” sites inevitably becoming more tenuous, even if they later acquire a stronger research ethos. This may challenge the initial vision. As one PVC put it:

My worry is that they [secondees] go native by not making sure that [home institution’s] interest is protected. That’s why secondments are fixed term and they don’t get extended. [PVC]

Fourth, therefore, with the growing diversity and scale of an institution’s campuses, the contractual commitment to overseas-based staff will need to be developed. As teaching programs become fully established and research initiatives grow, international training schemes will be needed for both home-based (i.e., potential secondees) and outside recruits. Quality assurance methods, accommodating both the ethos of the home institution and the financial, educational, and political priorities of partner agencies, will also require intensive local staff commitment, not just that of expatriate secondees. An essential requirement will be the development of consistent contractual arrangements, with incentives for overseas work by UK staff, including provisions for individuals’ family responsibilities. In the past, for example, many companies have tended to be generous in providing help for the spouses of assignees although in the current recession this has been reduced (Salt & Wood, 2012).

Finally, our interviews make it clear that institutions are aware that university portfolios of mobility must develop flexibly and in a more integrated fashion. As the size and variety of overseas campuses expand, current staffing models will not work. If such overseas developments are to become core functions of UK institutions, mobility portfolios based simply on “marginal” ad hoc business travel, international staff recruitment and electronic communications will not suffice. The human resource ethos of UK parent institutions will have to change. Overall, this means that UK university HR policies will need to develop away from their traditional UK-based character, as they expand, literally and metaphorically, into new territories.