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Research on branding is an established sub-discipline in the higher education literature. However, studies in this field have somehow produced contradictory results: some studies point at isomorphism, others find differentiation. Our study wants to offer a possible explanation for this paradox, by proposing a more nuanced view on brand communication. Based on a multiple case study of three Flemish universities, our results mainly point at isomorphism in communication channels with a general focus that are addressed towards a broad audience. In specific communication channels, targeted towards specific stakeholders, we identify high levels of differentiation. We discuss these findings against the background of the strategic ambiguity perspective on communication in complex stakeholder environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary higher education, stakeholder management is increasingly important given the growing number and complexity of stakeholder groups. Defensive stakeholder management (DSM), defined as verbal responses of universities to stakeholder criticism, is a largely neglected topic in the higher education literature. Drawing from a combination of theoretical perspectives in the organisation science literature, we explore how three Serbian universities engage with DSM (in relation to allegations of academic misconduct). We focus on the antecedents of inter-institutional differences in responses to stakeholder criticism and its antecedents, in particular, decision-making structures and core missions. Our findings suggest that different universities do respond differently to the same type of criticism and as such this is an important contribution to the debate on DSM in higher education and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the factors affecting the content of universities' mission statements. We conceptualize missions as identity narratives, a type of symbolic representation of an organization. Based on the literature on organizational identity we argue that universities need to address two major challenges when crafting their mission statements, (i) to pursuit legitimacy in spite of multiple and competing expectations, and (ii) to properly balance similarity and distinctiveness from other universities. We identify factors that affect this strategic effort and develop hypotheses that we test in the empirical context of the United Kingdom's higher education system. Results show that (i) among competing expectations, universities choose claims that are plausible to external constituents and consistent with the values of internal members, and that (ii) they adopt claims similar to universities belonging to the same organizational form while differentiating from geographically closer universities in order to reduce competitive overlap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In higher education research, theoretical approaches stressing isomorphism dominate the discourse on how higher education institutions ‘behave’ in their higher education and research systems. We argue that research should address both instances of similarity and differences. Using theoretical notions from institutionalism and the branding/marketing literature, and focusing on how UK universities are different and similar in their welcome addresses—as expressions of the institutions’ images—we are able to offer a balanced view of patterns of similarities and differences as well as share findings of patterns over time (2005-2015). Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, our findings show overall high levels of homogeneity of images across the universities. But younger and less prestigious institutions were (both in 2005 and 2015) more inclined to show distinctive images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the higher education literature, there seems to be a growing consensus that contemporary higher education institutions (HEIs) are trapped in conformity. From a new institutional perspective, higher education scholars argue that HEIs tend to comply with widely endorsed institutionalized values (e.g. academic excellence) and this widespread compliance leads to field homogeneity, at least in the missions of HEIs. In this paper, we introduce an alternative perspective drawing on recent insights in Scandinavian institutionalism. From this perspective, it has been argued that organizations tend to develop organization specific, heterogeneous definitions of institutionalized values to establish a fit with the modalities of the specific organizational context. Based on a comparative case study in Flanders, we investigate translation rules that shape heterogeneous definitions of the institutionalized value of socio-demographic diversity. The major contribution of our study is that it sheds new light on the dynamics underlying field homogeneity versus heterogeneity in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier studies on stakeholder management in European universities focused on proactive strategies, that is, substantive organizational practices to establish and maintain mutually beneficial exchanges between universities and their stakeholders. We argue that the literature on stakeholder management has to be extended by theorizing defensive strategies (i.e. verbal or symbolic accounts in response to stakeholder criticism). Drawing on the institutional logics perspective, we investigate how and why a highly reputed, research-intensive European university deploys defensive strategies in the mass media. Our single-case study demonstrates that defensive strategies vary depending on the type of stakeholder criticism. Our study indicates that the relations between universities and their critical stakeholders can be consensual, but only if stakeholders criticize organizational values belonging to the institutional logic(s) from which universities operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times when universities are becoming less self-evident, these organisations may be confounded in terms of which aspects of their activities and performances they should communicate with their stakeholders. A related question – central to our study – is how they communicate. This paper analyses the style of one particular type of communication: welcome addresses of key spokespersons of UK universities. Building on the pertinent image and identity literature and using Speech Act Theory, we expected to find differences between universities by prestige and age and over time. We found that older universities use different styles compared to younger universities, and that there were also differences by prestige. We also found considerable changes over time. The findings suggest we should not see these welcome addresses as purely ceremonial, but as intentional messages with communication styles that reflect the organisational attributes of the university. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Branding of higher education institutions (HEIs) is an expanding area of research. The existing literature mainly draws on the strategic management perspective that argues that HEIs are pressured to develop brands which differentiate them from their competitors. Past studies, however, do insufficiently take into account that most HEIs are positioned in systems that contain both competitive pressures (to differentiate) and institutional pressures (to meet taken-for-granted expectations), where neither of the pressures is clearly dominant. Our multiple case study of the five Flemish universities finds that branding can simultaneously address competitive and institutional pressures and that the universities studied combine aspects of distinctiveness with elements of similarity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]