Seeing that the culture and governance of competition determines relations among social actors, we turn to the concept of referentiality to investigate the institutional order of competition in higher education. Defining referentiality as the description of a model standard for comparison, this study explores how higher education organizations…

Competition today has become a central policy imperative in higher education. Connected to resource efficiency and scarcity, it remains closely attached to the idea of the market but reaches beyond when related to positional or status orders. In the higher education literature such varieties of competition -- as distinct social processes -- are…

With increased competition for talented students and academic staff, many universities have recognised the importance of brand building to better position in the field. This study selected a recently founded public university in China as the case to explore in what way a young university's brand is constructed and to what extent such a brand is…

One subpopulation of students on the rise at many university campuses is e-sport gamers or "e-athletes." Video gamers are giving a new definition to the traditional athlete and are attracting the attention of athletic administrators, who are willing to fund scholarships to attract today's top e-athlete. The relationship between gamers…

To support the workforce gap of skilled cybersecurity professionals, gamified pedagogical approaches for teaching cybersecurity have exponentially grown over the last two decades. During this same period, e-sports developed into a multi-billion dollar industry and became a staple on college campuses. In this work, we explore the opportunity to…

Recruitment is one of the main strategic tools for universities, which aim to hire the best possible candidates for their academic positions. However, not every institution can hire whom they perceive as the best. Our paper investigates what are perceived to be the most pressing hindrances to attracting the best researchers. We focus on national…

Higher education can be considered an industry comprised of mobile students attending institutions worldwide (Findlay et al. in Int Migr 55(3):139-155, 2017). The global pandemic, COVID-19, has significantly impacted the mobility of these students. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have attracted students using international student recruiters,…

The issue of grade inflation has been studied in many countries across the globe, yet it remains under-researched in Pakistan. This study aims to understand grade inflation in Pakistani universities by examining the contributing factors and its consequences. The data for this study was collected through in-depth interviews of 20 professors from…

Late entry into a market is an institution strategy that has been little researched in the context of higher education. The purpose of this research was to identify and analyse the different positioning and differentiation strategies adopted by late entry institutions to gain a competitive advantage. The sample consisted of seven campuses…

The global diffusion of the graduate school organizational model has shifted the way future academic excellence is identified from a paternalistic master-disciple relationship to a collective organizational decision. 'Eminent men' used to recruit PhD students on the firm belief that they could identify excellence and integrate it in their own…

Colleges compete to attract students by investing in amenities such as athletics, dormitories, and student activities. We examine the effect of student consumption of postsecondary amenities on academic achievement and future donation behavior in the context of Big-Time college sports. We resolve the selection issue using data from a large, public…

This study examines the critical role that marketing plays within the realms of public four-year higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United States, all through the lens of HEI presidents. The context is a higher education market that is rapidly evolving, stirred by fierce competition, shifting societal norms, the COVID-19 pandemic…

Increasing competition among research universities has spurred a race to recruit academic labor to staff research teams, graduate programs, and laboratories. Yet, often ignored is how such efforts entail negotiating a pervasive hierarchy of universities, where elite institutions in the West continue to attract the best students and researchers…

Based on an analysis of policy documents, questionnaires and interviews, the paper discusses the experiences of Chinese young academics on tenure-track contracts. Findings suggest that young academics perceive tenure as a managerial solution to governance reform. Meanwhile, a population-resource imbalance and the uncertainty in career progression…

Regional, private colleges that are heavily reliant on revenue from traditional, undergraduate students are facing mounting challenges in fulfilling their enrollment targets in an increasingly competitive educational landscape (Lederman, 2019). This scenario has placed a significant strain on the marketing function of these institutions, requiring…