To understand the changes that are reshaping higher education , an analysis of the language utilized to discuss contemporary universities is illuminating. Consider, for example, the following phrase, by a senior university administrator: āIām sorry for being late to the meeting; I was dealing with a social media crisis.ā In a different time, this sentence would have caused confusion. Today, however, many higher education administrators have experience responding to postings on social media, such as Twitterā¢ or FacebookĀ® that portray their institutions in a negative light and that requires their immediate attention. In a different setting, another administrator may pose the following question in a meeting: āI think these are good ideas, but we need consider how these initiatives will affect our universityās brand.ā These phrases illustrate that ideas and activities related to marketing and branding have entered the life of colleges and universities. Higher education scholars have, thus far, engaged only marginally with these phenomena. This book intends to engage with and contribute to ongoing conversations about marketing and branding among scholars and practitioners of higher education around the word.
Language does not merely reflect or represent a changing reality. Languageāas poststructuralist theorists suggestāis constitutive and helps shape our constructed social realities (JĆørgensen and Phillips 2011). Branding and marketing conversations reflect and reinforce the marketization of higher education (Brown and Carasso 2013), an increasing consumer orientation (McArdle-Clinton 2008), and what some have called the āconsumerist turnā in higher education (Naidoo et al. 2011). As Stensaker and DāAndrea (2007) suggest, āthe word branding suggests that higher education is increasingly becoming part of an emerging higher education marketā (p. 5). Using language as a metaphor for understanding branding and marketing in higher education is a justifiable approach because consumption constitutes a language (Berger 2010) and because marketing is about conveying messages, and therefore, relies on linguistic tools (Oswald 2012). Marketing is the communication component of the strategic branding process for an organization (Eshuis et al. 2013).
Arjun Appadurai (1996, 2000) argues in very a compelling way, that globalization takes place through āethnoscapes, mediascapesā¦ā (Appadurai 1996, p. 33). Taking up this idea, and arguing that the surge of branding initiatives in higher education is linked to globalization, the idea of brandscape suggests that higher education institutions develop brands, not in isolation, but rather as part of a branding landscape. This branding landscape can be equated to the neoinstitutional concept of field (Scott 2008) and the isomorphic dynamics (DiMaggio and Powell 1983) within. The contributions in this book illustrate many ways in which a consumer turn has entered higher education . They also illustrate the ways in which higher education stakeholdersāadministrators, policymakers, and studentsārespond to an increasingly integrated and competitive global field of higher education. This analysis of how university brands interact with each other is akin to the process of mapping a territory, which is the main goal of this book.
Motivations for Branding
The idea that colleges and universities are complex organizations that adapt to their external environment has long been accepted in higher education scholarly circles (Enders 2004; Manning 2013; Papadimitriou 2011). A changing environment would, then, require organizational adaptation. Following this logic, if one seeks to make sense of the emergence of branding and marketing , it is necessary to look at changes in the environment. While many complex trends can be traced, one can point to the following set of influences: (a) globalization, regionalization and internationalization, (b) increasing privatization, and (c) growing demands for accountability. While many other elements could be added to the argument, the combination of these three elements accounts for many of the changes in the higher education landscape in recent years. For example, increased globalization, regionalization, and internationalization lead to a relatively small but significant number of internationally mobile students. These students are seen are revenue sources for colleges and universities that now compete with each other to attract those students (Marginson and Rhoades 2002). This phenomenon is exacerbated by decreasing public investment in higher education , which leads to privatization (Levy 2006). This privatization does not involve exclusively the creating of private higher education institutions, but the privatizationāvia fees and profit-oriented activitiesāof public universities.
Linked to the decreasing investment in higher education is a growing questioning of the value of higher education. Conversations that cast doubts on the value of higher education are often accompanied by calls for increasing accountability. Given that traditional forms of quality assurance have recently come into question (e.g., Gaston 2014), colleges and universities engage new strategies to demonstrate their value to the public. These strategies involve participation in accreditation schemes and in rankings. Therefore, while it is unlikely that a single student may be contemplating the choice between attending her local community (2-year) college or move to a different country to pursue a degree in a selective institution, global competition is an important influence on the emergence of branding and marketing in higher education .
Global Competition and Position-Taking
In recent decades, a sense of integration among higher education systems has been noted in the literature. As higher education systems are increasingly intertwined, individual institutions need to differentiate themselves from potential competitors, often through marketing campaigns and the use of quality assurance mechanisms (Knight 2007). As an example of this need for market differentiation, it is possible to identify universities around the world that have resourced to US accreditation as a way to demonstrate international standards of quality. This has been extensively researched in Mexico, for example (Blanco Ramirez 2015). One of these studies documented how one of these Mexican universities built an entire marketing campaign around their recently obtained US international accreditation:
Some participants at the Mexican university suggested that, via the accrediting agency, they were now connected to reputable US institutions: āwe are accredited by the same agency that accredits Stanford, UC Berkeley and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)ā. (Blanco Ramirez 2015, p. 334)
This association with prestigious US institutions was then used as the foundation for a marketing campaign that involved printed and electronic media alike. It is noteworthy that this Mexican higher education institution is private and depends on tuition as the main source of revenue. This example illustrates the importance of position-taking in higher education . The concept of global position-taking deserves attention given its influence on marketing and branding in the context of higher education. Given the way that marketing and branding have been defined in the field of higher education (Gibbs and Knapp 2012; Maringe and Gibbs 2009), we can establish a connection between theses activities and global position-taking. As Marginson (2007) noted, position-taking has gained importance among the activities that university administrators carry out. From a neoinstitutional perspective (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Scott 2008), maintaining legitimacy within a field (i.e., higher education) is of great importance. This is perhaps further accentuated in higher education (Meyer et al. 2007). Therefore, quality assurance and legitimacy in the context of higher education are intertwined.
Marginson (2006, 2007), building upon Bourdieu (1993) theorizes that in position-taking, higher education institutions exercise their institutional agency in order to take position while at the same time, institutions encounter the boundaries of the system that positions them. The process of higher education position-taking is perhaps best illustrated through international rankings. Most higher education institutions have aspiration...