高等教育方向：市场营销视角外文文献

Australasian Marketing Journal 26 2018 187 193 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Australasian Marketing Journal journal homepage Directions in higher education A marketing perspective Mark D Uncles UNSW Business School UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 Australia a r t i c l e i n f o Article history Available online 30 May 2018 Keywords Higher education Students as partners Learning environments Value in development Value in delivery Value in consumption a b s t r a c t Higher education is a service industry a terrifi c success story by most measures of industrial success Across the globe ever rising numbers of students are enrolled in programs In this essay a marketing perspective is used to examine changes in higher education with a focus on the identifi cation of new opportunities Where students are regarded as partners new sources of value will arise around value in development value in delivery and value in consumption Furthermore with the explosion of data capture analysis and visualisation we can measure and evaluate these sources of value and are equipped to adopt an evidence based approach to the provision of higher education Certain directions however are raising serious concerns for students providers and regulators Transformation is disruptive leading to uncertainty anxiety even fear but by applying marketing concepts and analytics we will be better placed to assess opportunities weigh up fears and help set the direction of higher education 2018 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved c h i n e s e a b s t r a c t 2018 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved 1 The industrialisation of higher education Contemporary higher education operates at an industrial scale Across the globe millions of students attend both publicly funded institutions and private providers They are enrolled on sub bachelors bachelors pre masters masters doctoral executive and post experience programs A high proportion of the total are en rolled at institutions outside their home country as international students on immersive exchange and study abroad programs or through short term intensive study tours and practicums Higher education providers employ thousands of academics and profes sional support staff and typically draw on armies of conjoint adjunct contract and sessional teaching staff as well as profes sional contractors sub contractors project managers and consul tants These institutions are corporates Vice Chancellors are CEOs Deans are divisional executives The imperative for institutions is to maintain enrollment num bers Usually in fact it is to grow numbers often aggressively by enrolling more students into existing programs and expanding E mail address m uncles unsw edu au into geographically diverse markets with a broader mix of pro grams and more varied channels of distribution These institutional imperatives are replicated at the regional level Higher education is the largest employer in many townships and students inject much needed income into regional economies Deloitte Access Eco nomics 2015 showed UNSW Sydney contributed 1 76 billion to Australian GDP in 2014 of which 1 58 billion was concentrated in NSW and accounted for 11 700 FTE Australian jobs including 10 500 in NSW Nationally New Zealand s universities are believed to contribute almost 20 billion to the regions where they are lo cated and individually drive between 1 6 and 6 5 of regional GDP Universities New Zealand 2018 Providers have become growth poles key agents of geograph ically focussed economic activity This is particularly apparent in regional locations as with the University of New England in Armi dale and the University of Waikato in Hamilton but increasingly in our major cities too e g the accommodation of thousands of inter national students is bringing economic activity and cultural energy to central Melbourne The economic signifi cance of higher education is equally notice able at the national level both overall as a proportion of GDP and https doi org 10 1016 j ausmj 2018 05 009 1441 3582 2018 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved 188 M D Uncles Australasian Marketing Journal 26 2018 187 193 as an export sector More than half a million international students are now enrolled at Australian universities private colleges and English language schools this represents a doubling of numbers over a decade and adds up to a fi nancial contribution of 32 bil lion a year Universities Australia 2018 International education is Australia s third largest export coming after iron ore and coal ex ports In New Zealand international education is the fourth largest export earner generating 4 3 billion annually Universities New Zealand 2018 Beyond Australasia the determination of Singapore to be an ed ucation hub Boston of the East is well documented The govern ment launched its World Class Universities program in 1997 and the Global Schoolhouse Initiative in 2002 with the stated goal of attracting 150 0 0 0 foreign students and increasing the contribution of higher education to the economy to 5 ISC 2016 Singapore is by no means alone in taking a strategic approach China s Dou ble World Class Project is even more ambitious the nation has 37 million students already which amounts to one in fi ve of all stu dents in the world Alongside these trends the geo political signifi cance of interna tional student movements is increasingly apparent Opportunities for greater cultural exchange and improved cross cultural under standing are welcome but accompanying these desired outcomes is the risk of economic dependence on international students the intended and unintended impacts of migration and immigration policies and practices e g temporary migration policy and visa processing and implications for national security of having such large numbers of foreign nationals in a country As such higher education is no more immune from geo political infl uence and in terference than any other major sector of the economy be it min ing resources agriculture tourism entertainment manufacturing or fi nance The industrial scale of higher education refl ects calls for the democratisation of access to education and is a driver of those calls for wider access regardless of a person s gender income culture or physical dis ability All who might benefi t are encour aged to apply for enrollment on degree programs Access based on academic merit sits alongside the broader objective of creating opportunities for a greater diversity of students including those suffering forms of disadvantage those from low socio economic families those who are fi rst in family students and those recently migrated or in a country as refugees A measure of success is that from 2004 to 2016 the proportion of Australians with a Bachelor degree or above rose from 21 to 31 ABS 2017 Similarly in New Zealand the proportion rose from 15 to 24 over the period 2006 16 Education Counts 2018 The trend is replicated across most nations and not only advanced OECD industrial nations 2 Reaction to the industrialisation of higher education Some commentators deeply regret industrialisation of the sec tor and express grave concerns particularly for the future of busi ness education Holbrook 2018 How does the purpose and ethos of an institution change when it is seen as an economic entity a growth pole a regionally signifi cant employer a primary gen erator of exports Is the continual striving for growth in stu dent numbers sustainable and desirable At an institutional level are corporate values mis aligned with the scholarly and intellec tual values of a university or college Viewed against the im pressive aggregate statistics what can individual students expect from education providers And for those working in the sector what does all this mean for traditional values such as academic freedom These are reasonable questions refl ecting a mixture of legiti mate concern and nostalgia for a time when college professors de termined their own priorities in hallowed and cloistered surround ings The community of scholars dined each night at high table engaged in erudite conversation and retired to the smoking room for a night cap The closest this came to the world of corporate affairs was through the bursar with his always his responsibil ity for college fi nances and bursaries This is nostalgia for an era adroitly described by Snow 1951 in The Masters published in the 1950s but set in 1937 It also is nostalgia for privilege for a time when only a minuscule number of students had access to higher education During the 1960 80s there was a happy coming together of wider access to higher education and state funding to support that access In this halcyon period the masses could enjoy college life Students might even be recipients of grants In the West govern ments of all persuasions have come to the view that this is not sustainable at scale and either expect students to pay partially or fully directly or through loan schemes that have become less gen erous over the years or institutions to be more commercial or a combination of both Admittedly some non Western governments provide signifi cant state funding of student scholarships and edu cation infrastructure projects partly to enable their higher educa tion sectors to catch up quickly These examples however are on an unprecedented industrial scale as with China s goal of having 40 world class universities by mid century EIU 2018 and hardly compare with the nostalgia for college life or even the wider ac cess of 1960 80s in the West It is most unlikely that we will return to a system where higher education comprises elite communities of scholars and smallish enrollments of state funded students Realistically it is an indus try and one that deserves to be examined as such like health or tourism It is an industry dominated by institutions that offer ed ucational services at scale though for those able to pay there re main small private institutions offering high touch high value ser vices For marketers this scenario of industrial scale growth is an opportunity to deploy marketing concepts on home turf to use concepts and principles for self examination of the sector particu larly in relation to business education The framework for this essay is depicted in Fig 1 Higher ed ucation institutions providers are faced with changing student preferences and demands changing employer expectations and changing societal expectations This results in real and perceived gains and fears In turn the value proposition for students extends well beyond the acquisition of a degree to value creation in being a partner in the development delivery and consumption of higher education services These sources of value are amenable to analy sis and evaluation providing input for planning and action by stu dents themselves also by providers and regulators These points are elaborated in the sections that follow 3 Customers and stakeholders in higher education Services industries are necessarily customer centric For higher education this requires providers to be highly responsive to the evolving preferences and demands of diverse students and attuned to the expectations of major stakeholders who are looking for the realisation of social benefi ts In recent decades this has been a story of wider access to higher education service provision for the masses 3 1 Students as customers As customers students have become vocal in expressing their preference for a total experience personalised delivery and being equipped with practical skills Substantive disciplinary knowledge is contextually important but it is not necessarily the main reason for a student to study program transfers from one discipline to M D Uncles Australasian Marketing Journal 26 2018 187 193 189 Customers the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 20 0 0 the ESOS Act and the Higher Education Support Act 2003 There are also numer ous other acts that apply to any sizeable business covering the environment employees work health and safety equity diversity and inclusion records management and access to information and privacy Operating at arms length from government are regulators e g the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency TEQSA set up in Australia to assure quality in a period of higher education expansion and to uphold standards through the Higher Education Standards Framework 2015 and qualifi cations frameworks e g the Australian Qualifi cations Framework AQF the New Zealand Quali fi cations Authority NZQF the European Qualifi cations Framework EQF Additionally the business school sector has its own accredi tation authorities notably AACSB and EQUIS and professional ac creditations e g CPA Australia and Chartered Accountants Aus tralia and New Zealand CA ANZ To comply a signifi cant amount of effort must be injected into record keeping data capture analy sis and reporting Moreover the unintended effect may be to frus trate or slow down curriculum experimentation and innovation Another concern for traditional providers is that the defi nition of provider itself has changed No longer is the list confi ned to universities and technical institutes TAFE in Australia it now encompasses the training and educational activities of commer cial operators e g Navitas and Kaplan publishers e g Pearson McGraw Hill Wiley Harvard Publishing and developers and designers Keypath many of whom are as effective in the online world as the face to face In the arena of lifelong learning and tapping into the aging of the population the University of the Third Age is growing its presence In all of this it can be hard for traditional providers to distinguish cooperative partners from com petitors or indeed say whether the future lies with coopetition Collectively these fears raise fundamental questions about the reliance on growth the revenue risk of being dependent on international students the funding of mainly non business re search from mainly business teaching revenues Not surprisingly the sustainability of this model is open to question Not all these fears are well grounded nevertheless they are frequently heard and are mostly traced to concerns that stem from the industrialisation of higher education The majority of graduates are in fact employed but student concerns about career readiness and employability are understandable Curricula do refl ect inno M D Uncles Australasian Marketing Journal 26 2018 187 193 191 vative business practices and equip students with practical skills but again it is understandable that employers believe more could be done Governments have a duty to ask about the balance of private benefi t and public gain although we may question the inferences they draw from the data and the policy decisions that follow Whilst the amount of regulation may be burdensome the existence of quality standards is not in itself questionable Nor that international students should be afforded certain legal protections when they choose to study overseas 4 Customer value propositions in higher education Gains are realised and fears ameliorated when students en gage with providers for an expected benefi t or source of value For an individual student the perceived and realised value of higher education may be quite personal even idiosyncratic Typically however students acquire value from educational products from their access to networks and from the provision of learning environments All of which are changing signifi cantly as providers seek ways to offer more value to students 4 1 Value from degrees networks and settings The traditional product portfolio comprises single disciplinary focused degree programs Bachelor of Commerce Master of Com merce Master of Business Administration and so forth and dual combined cross disciplinary degree programs Business with for example Engineering Law and Arts The benefi t is the award of a degree certifi ed on a student s testamur Whilst students continue to enroll in traditional degree programs in large numbers the portfolio is expanding sub bachelor diploma programs pre master diploma programs micro credentialed courses and mod ules digitally badged achievements non award programs virtual executive programs continuing professional development CPD programs and certifi ed corporate professional training courses This expanded list offers greater fl exibility for a wider range of stu dents Along with the acquisition of a degree students gain access to a network of peers clubs and societies alumni industry part ners and professional bodies Some will benefi t from interna tional collaborations and partnerships through exchange and study abroad and participation in international case competitions and hackathons These networks hold the promise of pathways into a job a foot in the door as well as preferential access to alumni events lifelong learning activities and CPD There is nothing new in this but professionalised alumni relations departments and so cial media platforms like LinkedIn have transformed the ability to create massive professional networks for students and graduates to leverage Beyond degrees and networks students are given access to learning environments the benefi t is that of being provided with a setting for learning to occur The norm in business schools became large capacity tiered lecture theatres and small fl at fl oored tutorial rooms These days the demand is for fl ipped active learning spaces studio maker spaces pop up sand pits and skunk work places The need to accommodate large numbers has also focused attention on the provision of informal student led spaces equipped with re charging sockets and reliable high speed wi fi Libraries that once housed racks of musty books are now technology enabled and their spaces turned over to bookable study rooms and private study pods Beyond the physical campus