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Authors from all over the world are invited to submit proposals and works in-progress to the Marketing for Higher Education SIG special session at Summer ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø 2017: “Shaping the Future of Marketing Education: Examining the Impact on Business Schools.” Details can be found in the attachment. The SIG looks forward to receiving your papers!

ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø’s Marketing for Higher Education SIG Call for Proposals/Works in-Progress
Shaping the Future of Marketing Education: Examining the Impact on Business Schools

Traditionally, a university degree has been considered the key to a good job, but rising university fees, increasing student debt, shrinking educational returns, and the declining quality of graduates have created concerns about higher education’s return on investment. These issues pose more challenges for universities to manage the public perception of higher education and consequently its demand (Chronicle, 2014). Moreover, universities increasingly compete for both international and domestic students (Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana 2007; Atakan and Eker 2007) and face intense pressure to maintain and grow enrollment. Furthermore, as technology advances, academic programs are offered in more diverse and competitive environments. Recent developments in distance education include a growing number of firms, such as Meteor Learning, 2U, and Pearson, that partner with universities to provide market research, student recruitment, and marketing, in addition to course design, development, and hosting, to reduce the time-to-market of online degrees. Such developments will intensify the competition among colleges and universities.

Overall, the increasing competition in higher education accelerates the need to actively monitor the quality and relevance of education offered by higher education institutions and commit to continuous improvement to survive in this competitive environment (Brigham, 1994). According to Pucciarelli and Kaplan (2016), higher education institutions should increase their prestige and market share, follow a more entrepreneurial approach, and increase their interactions and with key stakeholders to improve value co-creation. However, universities have done little to address these challenges. Therefore, it is essential to focus on the quality of educational content and identify innovative curricular changes that make degree programs attractive to prospective students and recruiters and that justify the return on investment of a college degree.

These challenges are even more paramount for business schools. Business schools have been one of the success stories of higher education in the past four decades, but they have become the target of a wide range of criticisms and concerns regarding their value, role, purpose, relevance, and academic quality (Thomas et al. 2014). For professional degrees such as marketing, delivering valuable educational content beyond the classroom is a necessity. Doing so will benefit the undermined image of business schools and universities and improve their financial bottom lines.

Topics of Interest

• Return on investment in higher education
• Curriculum quality and student/university outcomes
• Shaping the marketing curriculum according to recruiter/industry expectations
• Assessing the gap between marketing curriculum and expected learning outcomes
• Innovative materials and teaching methods to enhance quality of marketing education
• Evaluation and assessment of student learning
• Experiences outside the classroom and student placement rate of marketing majors
• Experiential learning and student placement rate of marketing majors
• Student placement rate and enrollment outcomes for the business school/university
• Learning for employment
• Factors affecting student enrollment
• Reshaping the curriculum and rebranding the academic program
• Online courses – offering options to students
• Flexible degree programs – Brown University
• Faculty profile and learning outcomes

Important Dates

• Submission deadline: April 15, 2017
• Author notification: June 15, 2017
• Presentation at the Marketing for Higher Education Special Session: ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø Summer Educators’ Conference: August 5, 2017

Awards

The Special Session Committee will select the top three submissions for presentation during the special session at the ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø summer conference. The best paper will receive an award at the session. Authors of the top three submissions will be invited to the Marketing for Higher Education SIG reception event during the ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø summer conference 2017.

Submission guidelines

Authors from all over the world are invited to submit proposals and work in-progress research projects. All submissions will be peer reviewed by the Program Committee based on their fit, originality, significance, and methodological soundness. The Program Committee is composed of Editors, Associate Editors, and Editorial Review Board Members of marketing education and higher education journals. Submitted papers must be written in English and should be in PDF format. Paper length must be between 4 and 8 pages, incorporating all text, references, figures and tables. Papers failing to adhere to the guidelines will be rejected without consideration of their merits. Submissions should be sent to sig.highered@gmail.com

References

Atakan, M. G. Serap and Tutkan Eker (2007), “Corporate Identity of a Socially Responsible University – A Case from the Turkish Higher Education Sector,” Journal of Business Ethics. 76, 55-68.

Hemsley-Brown, Jane and Shivonne Goonawardana (2007), “Brand Harmonization in the International Higher Education Market,” Journal of Business Research. 60(9), 942-948.

Pucciarelli, Francesca and Andreas Kaplan (2016), “ Competition and Strategy in Higher Education: Managing Complexity and Uncertainty,” Business Horizons. 59 (3), 311-320.

The Chronicle of Higher Education (2014), Higher ED Marketing Comes of Age: Data and Insights from College Marketing Leaders.

The Economist (2012) Higher Education: Not What It Used to Be. Retrieved from

Thomas, Howard, Peter Lorange, and Jagdish Sheth (2014), The Business School in the Twenty-First Century: Emergent Challenges and New Business Models. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

 

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