Positioning strategies and rankings in the HE: congruence and contradictions

Önder Kethüda

Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 2023, vol. 33, issue 1, 97-123

Abstract: Positioning strategy and ranking are critical issues in an increasingly competitive higher education landscape. Unless there is conceptual congruence between positioning strategies and rankings, the signals may become diffused and confusing for prospective students. This paper seeks the congruence between positioning strategies and ranking. Since without a validated typology of positioning strategies, such congruence cannot be sought, this paper firstly aims to develop an empirically derived typology of positioning strategies for HEIs. The population consists of HEIs in the UK. Content analysis was used to analyze the WebPages of HEIs to identify positioning bases, and congruence and contradictions between those positioning bases and ranking were identified by correspondence analysis. As a result, a new positioning typology consisting of eight bases, which are top of the range, campus life experience, internationalization, teaching excellence, research quality, graduates prospects, location, and value for money, was identified. In conclusion, HEIs are categorized into three different groups as Leaders and Challengers, Followers, and Nichers and Cost Leaders, and recommendations about how to guarantee congruence between positioning strategy and ranking were made. HEIs should choose positioning bases in line with their rankings since congruence strengthens the position in the minds.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08841241.2021.1892899 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jmkthe:v:33:y:2023:i:1:p:97-123

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/WMHE20

DOI: 10.1080/08841241.2021.1892899

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Marketing for Higher Education is currently edited by Dr Jane Hemsley-Brown, Anthony Lowrie and Dr. Thomas Hayes

More articles in Journal of Marketing for Higher Education from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().