Managing higher education brands with an emerging brand architecture: the role of shared values and competing brand identities

ABSTRACT

Corporate branding is a strategic issue for universities as the global higher education (HE) marketplace is becoming increasingly competitive and there is pressure to differentiate. Yet it is unclear how universities develop and manage brand strategies, and whether they draw upon any meaningful connections to the multiple stakeholders and sub-cultures engaged with a university’s brand. Using qualitative data gathered from an education faculty within an established UK university, this study found the faculty and university had competing brand identities and images. A strong faculty brand emerged co-created through the shared teacher related values of staff and external partners. This study contributes to the brand strategy literature by applying branding concepts to the under-researched HE context and proposing a new, more nuanced brand architecture model not yet reported in the branding literature which more accurately reflects the management of sub and corporate HE brands.     

Content,Pedagogy, and Learning Outcomes in the International Marketing Course

Abstract

The early internationalization of business school curricula was in response to corporate needs and expectations, and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) fostered changes by instituting accreditation outcomes that focused upon international content in the curriculum. By the late 1990s, a course in international marketing was standard at most accredited college and universities, and faculty in these courses reported on various approaches to teaching the course. The main objective of the current study was to examine the course content, pedagogy, and learning outcomes of current international marketing courses. As such, a content analysis of international marketing syllabi from 89 colleges and universities was conducted. Findings from this indepth analysis offer insights regarding knowledge content coverage, pedagogical strategy, and learning outcomes assessment and provide an update on the current status of teaching international marketing in schools of business.     

Emerging Economies' March Toward Globalization: From China to Muscatine

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a university business faculty-based workload model (WLM) is described. The WLM incorporates all the activities associated with university academic life and serves as a base for the management and/or change management of any of these. The WLM also provides an objective, transparent and equitable mechanism for the allocation of workload for all academics in the faculty, recognizing that there are certain activities which have strategic importance and need to be encouraged. In this paper, the strategic academic activity selected for illustration is research activity and output (within an Australian context). The WLM can be adapted to suit most other country's higher education systems. The WLM per se explicitly incorporates an element of research management which is supplemented, due to the research context adopted in this paper, by a sub-model, the Research Quantum management Model (RQMM), whose specific intent is the (change) management of research activity and its subsequent output (research quantum).     

Still enamoured of the glocal: A comment on ‘From local to grobal,and back’

This is a comment on M. Hoogenboom, D. Bannink, & W. Trommel (2010), ‘From local to grobal, and back’ (Business History, 52(6), 932–954). While great appreciation is expressed for the authors’ effort to test empirically the theoretical ideas developed by G. Ritzer (2007) in The globalization of nothing (2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press), a number of reservations are expressed about the way his ideas are interpreted. The article has the unfortunate tendency to support the idea of glocalisation rather than the broader model developed by Ritzer.     

Social marketing theory development goals: an agenda to drive change

ABSTRACT

Environmental, health, and social change is complex and frequently is framed as a problem(s) to be solved. This framing focuses effort on delivery of solutions designed to change systemic environmental, health, and social problems. Theory, an organising framework for effort, remains under-utilised in behavioural and social sciences. An individual psychological lens dominates and emphasis is placed on explaining and predicting individual behaviour and not behavioural change. It is time to break free and deliver frameworks that extend focus beyond individuals to all citizens, and apply new evaluation approaches that assess individual and structural changes. Ten Social Marketing Theory Development Goals (goals) categorised in three groups: (i) research design; (ii) building social marketing theory; and (iii) methodological innovation are outlined to assist social marketers to develop new ways of thinking that will deliver the theory and evidence base needed to outline what practitioners and policy makers should do to effect change.     

Collaborative Learning Instrument in Teaching Entrepreneurship Issues

Abstract

Due to the shortcomings associated with the largely passive learning experience currently experienced by students at the University level in Central and Eastern Europe, active learning approaches have been promoted by educationalists as a more effective method for teaching business and entrepreneurship. This paper contributes to this literature by outlining a collaborative learning instrument involving active learning that can be used to teach entrepreneurship at university level in Central and Eastern Europe. This instrument illustrates the role of entrepreneurship and proprietorship in both a well-established market economy and in the post-communist economies of Central and Eastern Europe. Students outcomes should include the following: firstly, the recognition that the emerging small business sectors of the post-communist economies have much potential as a vehicle for economic growth and for developing capitalist forms of economic production; secondly, an understanding that entrepreneurial behavior is an essential element in the development of the small business sector; thirdly, an ability to identify traits common to successful entrepreneurs; and fourthly, they will develop and practice a variety of entrepreneurial skills themselves that may make them aware of their potential as entrepreneurs.     

Globalization,Coordination, and Subsidiary Performance-Evidence from Companies in an Advancing Country

ABSTRACT

We investigate an important issue in globalization, the relationship between production capacity of a global company's subsidiary and its performance, where the subsidiary's relative size of production capacity is regarded as its globalization level. Analyzing the field data on 42 Korean companies engaged in global operations, we reached preliminary conclusions. First, the optimal level of subsidiary globalization represented by its relative production capacity does not exist. This lack of significance subsides when we associate the globalization level with global coordination between the headquarters and its subsidiary. Global coordination turns out to be a significant factor, either direct or moderating in relation to the globalization level, in determining the subsidiary's performance. We also found that the type of coordination supporting the subsidiary's innovation is different from that enhancing its operational efficiency: for the subsidiary's innovation capability, indirect coordination is effective, whereas direct coordination can be detrimental. In addition, we report effects of other factors such as global experience, host country and target market characteristics on the subsidiary performance.     

Roots of Marketing and Consumer Research at the University of Chicago1

The marketing and consumer research fields began to flourish in the late 1940s after World War II. Social Research, Inc. was founded in 1946 by members of the University of Chicago's faculty. Students at the University's interdisciplinary Committee on Human Development and the Departments of Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology worked at Social Research, Inc., pioneering the application of behavioral methods of research to problems of business and other organizations. This paper traces the transmission of knowledge from the academic setting to the business environment. It notes especially the influence of members of the university faculty and their theories of human behavior on the emerging fields devoted to the study of consumption and culture.     

Introducing International Business Experience Through Virtual Teamwork

SUMMARY

The role of computer-mediated or virtual teamwork is increasing in modern organizations and the pressures of our increasingly global economy are unrelenting. Forces of technology and internationalization pose significant implications for business and management education. This paper describes the use of international virtual teamwork in the introductory management course at our university. The project is introduced along with the logistical and technological support required for their implementation. Student evaluations and faculty considerations are shared. The conclusion is offered that such projects can often be developed at minimum cost using available technologies and the international contacts of faculty. A call is made for giving more attention to international virtual teamwork opportunities in our business and management curricula.     

Cultural Immersion Trip to Southeast Asia: A Study of Cross-Cultural Intelligence

ABSTRACT

The primary purpose of this article is to demonstrate the execution of a successful short- term study trip to Southeast Asia and its influence on a student’s cultural intelligence. This article discusses an academic component of an international study trip that was developed for sophomores at a private university in the New England region of the United States. In an attempt to internationalize, the university led students on a 2-week international trip to Malaysia and Singapore known as the Sophomore International Experience. The authors have developed a model that combines an academically rigorous curriculum that juxtaposes domestic events/experiences with those of the foreign country and propose that the trip gives students first- hand international experience that prepares them to develop a global perception. The article evaluates the validity of the proposed theory with the help of the Cultural Intelligence Scale that measures significance improvements in cultural intelligence after taking the trip.     

Variations in University entrepreneurship education: An empirical study of an evolving field

University entrepreneurship education is in the embryonic stage, still a new venture in itself. Recent years have shown unabated growth in the number of universities offering entrepreneurship courses, but the subject is still considered suspect by many faculty and administrators.Effectively meeting university resistance to entrepreneurship course-work first requires an appreciation of the perceptions and misperceptions of the faculty and administration. Once the viewpoints are understood, counteractive communication strategies can be developed. Perceptions may include the following: (a) “small business” (vs. entrepreneurship) is a low-status realm associated with poor-quality research, and small is by connotation less worthwhile than large; (b) sophisticated management practices reside in larger firms and these practices coincide well with the functional organization in business colleges; and (c) entrepreneurship is a fad. More important, however, is the perception that “non-industry, non-stage-of-the-business-life-cycle, non-size truths apply to all,” and that entrepreneurship is therefore too specialized an area for scholarly endeavor. Yet a hard sciences scholar recently pondered, “How could the business discipline ever hope to develop comprehensive theories of business behavior without the equivalent in biology of developmental biology? How do organisms grow and mature into Fortune 500 firms?”With this backdrop an in-depth survey of expert opinion is presented, based on the beliefs and experiences of 15 highly regarded university entrepreneurship educators. These peer-identified respondents reacted to a wide variety of factors that were hypothesized to affect the outcomes of entrepreneurship education efforts. They included (a) educational objectives, (b) administrative and program development issues, and (c) course attributes.Although there were a variety of educational objectives cited by the respondents, most important was to “increase awareness and understanding of the process involving in initiating and managing a new business enterprise.” Other important objectives included attention to entrepreneurship as a career option, contributing to understanding functional business interrelationships, and attention to the characteristics of the entrepreneur. Other objectives concerned building students' selfconfidence, opportunity sensitivity, and analytical skills. Attention to the role of new and smaller firms in the economy was not rated as important.Organizationally, it was viewed as critical to have the support of the college administration. It was not universally agreed that an entrepreneurship major is desirable, with a bimodal response distribution. For universities with multiple courses, there appear to be three conceptual bases, sometimes interspersed, including the business functions, the business plan, and the business life cycle. It was agreed that entrepreneurship coursework should be more experientally oriented than other business school coursework, that the involvement of adjunct faculty should not be minimized, and that faculty research is important to an entrepreneurship education program. There was lukewarm support for business outreach programs and disagreement over the desirability of a student entrepreneurship club.Entrepreneurship course features considered most important were development of a business plan project and entrepreneurs as speakers and role models. Cases ranked next in importance followed by lectures and assigned readings.The future will bring experimentation with various program and course attributes, more research on pedagogy with the measurement of learning outcomes, the increased entree of entrepreneurship Ph.D.'s, and the maturation of this early-stage venture into entrepreneurship education.     

Mission Possible: Do School Mission Statements Work?

Does ethical content in organizational mission statements make a difference? Research regarding the effectiveness and results of mission statements is mixed. Krohe (1995, Across the board, 32, 17–21) concluded that much of the good results do not come from the mission statements themselves but from the strategic re-education that happens in producing one. We attempted to discover whether universities that explicitly state their ethical orientation and vision in their mission statements had students with higher perceived character trait importance and activities that reinforce character than universities that did not. While the faculty and administration may receive benefits from mission statement development through strategic re-education as Krohe suggested, do the statements influence the students at the university who may have had no role in its creation? Using a sample of senior business students at 16 universities we found that students at universities with ethical statements in their mission statements had significantly higher perceived character trait importance and character reinforcement than those at universities whose missions lacked ethical statements. This research suggests that schools that explicitly stated ethical content in their?mission statements do influence student ethical orientation.     

International Marketing (14th edition), by Philip R. Cateora,Mary C. Gilly,and John I. Graham

Abstract

The trend toward internationalizing business curriculum at American colleges and universities should be incorporated as a strategy throughout the United States. The catalyst that has led most business schools to adopt a systematic acceptance of the internationalization of their curriculum was the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) 1984-1985 Standards and Guidelines for business school accreditation. Most would agree that without AACSB mandates, the transition would be slower, but inevitable, due to the focus on worldwide business issues. The global economy is rapidly evolving and the needs for competencies in international business are becoming very important to the U.S. and its economic well-being. Because of this, industry is looking for a new kind of employee, the kind that understands both the importance of international business and how to operate within it successfully. The halls of academia must respond to this pressing need by going much further than providing a sporadic array of “elective” international topics. Their response has to be synergistic with university presidents, deans and faculties fully supportive of an organizational design change that promotes a new way of thinking. The new organization is one in which there must be an international focus throughout the business school. With that synergy in place, the process of internationalizing students, the university, curriculum and faculty can move forward.     

Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability in the globalization of the multinational business enterprise (MBE): Case studies of AB Volvo and IKEA

Most current research argues that globalization of companies is a myth. In spite of this Swedish firms have managed to globalize successfully according to a study by Vahlne and Ivarsson (2014). On a general level this is because they managed to build strong advantages and learned to overcome barriers constituted by cultural, institutional and geographic distance. We elaborate on the expectation that organizational ambidexterity has explanatory power for profitable globalization. We perform case studies of IKEA and AB Volvo to motivate our expectation and illustrate how these firms have been able, or not able, to balance and manage the simultaneous processes of exploration and exploitation. Ambidexterity is included in the package of dynamic capabilities affecting the globalization process positively. We find that being proactive in exploration and improving on the effectiveness in exploitation may lead to successful globalization performance.     

Student evaluation of teaching effectiveness: an unresolved dilemma

Content analysis techniques were used to analyse the criteria used for student evaluation of teaching effectiveness in college and university home economics programmes. Student evaluation forms were obtained from 29 state institutions representing 21 states. The evaluation forms varied in length from seven to 36 objective items. Most provided for flexibility. including such options as add-on items, open-ended response format, and choice of forms. The evaluation criteria fell into six categories: course organization and content, course requirements, evaluation procedures, student participation, teaching skills, and global value of course. All of the institutions included items related to teaching skills. This was also the most heavily weighted factor, accounting for nearly 40% of the total evaluation. This is a significant finding, given that many college and university faculty have limited opportunities to develop teaching skills prior to beginning an academic career. Home economics administrators might use the results of the study to design faculty development programmes to help both novice and experienced faculty acquire or improve the skills on which they are being evaluated.     

Internationalizing Business Education

ABSTRACT

A research effort was undertaken to study factors that would encourage and limit business school students regarding their participation in international study programs. The sample of students came from a large, urban, state university. Results indicate that personal factors were the strongest encouraging variables while financial considerations were the most limiting factor in the decision process. Subsequently, factors that would promote increased overseas study participation among the students were analyzed.     

Determinants of organisational identification and supportive intentions

Abstract

Organisational identification is the perception of belongingness to an organisation and a sense of oneness with the organisation. Identification has long been recognised as having important implications for the sense of satisfaction and belonging of employees and for the effectiveness of the organisation. Our research examined the impact of students' identification with a university on intentions to support the university. Drawing data collected at three different universities in Korea, the researchers investigated: (1) the effect of students' identification with athletic programmes and their academic department on identification with a university and intentions to support a university; and (2) the effect of identification with a university on intentions to support the university. Three hundred and six university students participated in the study. Structural equation modelling (i.e. LISREL) was employed to test the causal relationships among the hypothesised relationships. Results showed that identification with both athletic programmes and academic department had strong effects on intentions to support the university. In addition, those who identified with the university showed strong intentions to support the university. The results of the study indicate that individuals who identify with the organisation are apt to support it in various ways, and that identification can be encouraged through various means. The findings of this study may also suggest some important implications for marketing managers and their organisations.     

Organizational Learning and Market Orientation in International Marketing Education

SUMMARY

This study develops and tests a series of relationships between organizational learning and market orientation as it pertains to international marketing education. The focus is on the activities and relationships between the students, faculty, and staff in the international marketing/business program at three schools in the north, midwest, and south United States. Based on a sample of 193 undergraduate and graduate international marketing students, the results suggest that organizational learning (class and major area-based learning)-team orientation, systems orientation, learning orientation, and memory orientation-positively influences market orientation learning outcomes (i.e., intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness). The major implication of the study is that the education provided to the students in an international marketing course (i.e., upper-division university course) can be enhanced by focusing on organizational learning tools as a means to increase the shared knowledge level among the Students.     

A Customer Oriented Approach to Managing Noncommercial Foodservice Operations

Abstract

Means-end theory is used to develop a framework to investigate consumer perceptions of value and satisfaction. The research objective of the study was to assess the impact of product performance and service design on customer perceptions of value and satisfaction. The study was conducted in a non-commercial foodservice setting. The augmented product was decomposed into its core, peripheral, and service delivery components. The results indicated a strong influence of food quality on customer perceptions of value and satisfaction. In addition, strong associations between the food quality and supporting product elements were found. Implications for product design and management were discussed.     

A process model of academic entrepreneurship

Innovations stemming from research conducted on university campuses are a growing source for the ideas and core technologies that drive entrepreneurial endeavors. This trend has led to development of the term academic entrepreneurship, which refers to the efforts and activities that universities and their industry partners undertake in hopes of commercializing the outcomes of faculty research. Because it is a relatively new phenomenon, the process of academic entrepreneurship has not been as well articulated as one might hope. As such, the objective of this article is to draw on a range of academic entrepreneurship literature to develop a multi-stage process model of academic entrepreneurship. This model is intended to guide potential stakeholders through the application of academic entrepreneurship, with a focus on improving the odds of success. The advantage of this approach is identification of the activities, actors, and key success factors associated with each stage of the academic entrepreneurship process. We conclude our discussion by highlighting the benefits of engaging in academic entrepreneurship for a variety of potential stakeholders.