The marketing orientation as a university management philosophy: a framework to guide its application

Abstract

The environment in which university institutions develop their activities has become more competitive over recent decades and market elements have been introduced into the sector. Accordingly, universities have shown a growing interest in developing and maintaining a favourable and distinctive image among their stakeholders. To this end, many of them have focused their efforts on the improvement and renewal of training programs. However, such efforts have not always been matched in the transmission of a more favourable perception among their stakeholders. This context calls for university management with a marketing orientation. However, university marketing is in its early stages in many parts of the world and the incorporation of marketing principles and practices in the field of higher education encounters much reluctance from citizens and academics. This contribution sets out the reasons for this resistance, which may be grounded in a misconception about the discipline, and a working framework for marketing management in universities is proposed to facilitate the practical implementation of marketing philosophy in such institutions. It is a framework whose design involves a combination of services marketing and corporate marketing proposals and highlights aspects that managers of higher education institutions should focus on 1) to meet the demands of different stakeholders with varied (and sometimes conflicting) interests and 2) to move towards the development of a favourable perception among the stakeholders of the institutions they manage.