高校品牌研究：回顾与展望

对国内外尤其是我国学术界在高校品牌领域就高校品牌的内涵与基本特征、高校品牌塑造和发展的重要性、高校品牌塑造和发展的基本途径与方法等方面的研究作了较系统的回顾的基础上,提出了该领域未来的主要研究方向：既必须要在理论创新、系统研究上下工夫,以初步确立我国“高校品牌”研究的理论体系。     

Many choices,one destination: multimodal university brand construction in an urban public transportation system

Amidst global competition in higher education, colleges and universities adopt strategies that mimic and adapt business practices. Branding is now a widespread practice in higher education; multimodal advertisement is a manifestation of emerging branding strategies for universities. While the visibility of brands in higher education has grown substantially in recent years, its empirical study has lagged. This article reports on the findings from a study that employed social semiotic and multimodal analysis to explore text and visual rhetoric as brand construction strategies in publicly displayed university advertisements. After analyzing photographs representing advertising campaigns from 16 different universities displayed in an urban public transportation system, I suggest that universities construct their brand identity through messages that emphasize multiple choices and convenience, but construct success primarily according to corporate standards and values.     

‘Hottest brand,coolest pedagogy’: approaches to corporate branding in Singapore's higher education sector

This article examines the corporate branding efforts of Singapore's publicly funded higher education institutions within a context of neoliberal marketization. Adopting a discourse-analytic perspective, it examines the kind of branding approaches employed by Singapore's universities and polytechnics, and how these approaches are realized discursively in their brand artefacts. Three main approaches are identified and discussed. Referred to as (i) characterizing the brand; (ii) positioning the brand and (iii) personalizing the brand, they are constituted by a variety of language devices and discursive strategies such as positive evaluation, colloquial language and the use of particular metaphors, and represent a spread of approaches ranging from the more fact/reason-based to the experience/emotion-oriented. While the institutions employ a range of approaches, the findings of the analysis suggest that experience/emotion-oriented approaches are better elaborated in the artefacts, and gaining traction in the sector as a whole.     

Positioning university as a brand: distinctions between the brand promise of Russell Group, 1994 Group,University Alliance,and Million+ universities

Branding is now widely used by higher education (HE) institutions, yet questions still surround the transference of private sector concepts to a university context. This article reports on findings from studies that investigated the brand promises of four UK universities – one from each of the HE ‘mission groups’. The evidence indicated that, contrary to existing published presumptions, there is considerable potential for the application of branding in HE, but in differing and nuanced ways. Clear branding themes emerged across the cases such as environment, experiences, aspiration, and global positioning. While these enabled the universities to position their brands with distinction, the overriding method used across the cases – and the key point of differentiation – proved to be the presence of a core brand promise.     

From PISA to national branding: exploring Finnish education®

Since the recent global paradigm shift in the governance of higher education toward business and marketing, internationally competitive education is increasingly considered as an asset for governments. Consequently, governments started to invest in education branding and marketing their educational systems. In Finland, national interest in education branding rose especially since the country's success in the programme for international student assessment studies created a positive reputation of its basic education. In this article, the authors investigate how this reputation is transformed into a general Finnish education brand, based upon Finland's official Country Brand Report (2010). The governmental discourse on Finnish education reveals a fusion of education and national branding, which is why the authors suggest to discuss the Finnish education brand as Finnish education®. The article provides an analysis of the elements constituting the brand and opens up a critical discussion on the ethics of branding education through cultural and national characteristics.     

Politics,policies and practice: assessing the impact of sexual harassment policies in UK universities

Since sexual harassment was first named and identified as an obstacle to women's equality in the mid 1970s, concern about both its prevalence and its damaging effects has resulted in the widespread introduction of anti‐harassment policies in UK universities, as in other work and educational settings. The study reported here sought to assess the impact of these policies, in the context of criticisms of the effectiveness of universities' implementation of equal opportunities policies more generally. Its findings indicate that key differences in how policies are both conceived and implemented influence the degree of impact they have. In discussing these different approaches to tackling harassment I highlight the significance of adopting a ‘proactive’, rather than merely ‘reactive’ strategy and consider the reasons why many universities appear to be resisting doing so.     

Innovative universities

Abstract

Burton Clark, in Creating Entrepreneurial Universities, defined the characteristics of what he named ‘innovative universities’. The paper considers these characteristics ‐ particularly such universities' willingness to adapt to changing environments and how they seek to do so. It identifies the challenges facing universities and considers why universities need to adapt their research, teaching and learning, and knowledge transfer. Innovative universities do seek to escape history — they adapt to change.     

Brand equity of academics: demystifying the process

The current study endeavours to find out whether there is a relationship between university academics’ competence and their customer-based brand equity from the perspective of students. It also seeks to investigate the mechanism of the proposed relationship through trust, likability, and commitment. Data were collected from 384 postgraduate students in Malaysian universities using a structured questionnaire. Results of analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) revealed there is a significant relationship (total effect) between academics’ competence and customer-based brand equity. We found that the path from competence to brand equity goes through trust, likability, and commitment. Given the growing popularity of higher education in the new millennium and important role of academics in leading students to success, findings of the present study can enhance our understanding of academics’ branding and universities’ overall image. The implications and contributions of the study to university administrators and academics are discussed.     

Assessing university brand personality through logos: an analysis of the use of academics and athletics in university branding

For colleges and universities whose survival depends on external stakeholders, developing a strong brand should be an important component of their marketing strategy. University brand managers could benefit from developing a better understanding of how consumers interact with their brand in order to develop more effective recruiting material, advertisements, and other marketing efforts. The current study applies the concept of brand personality to university academic and athletic logos and examines subsequent relationships between the perceived brand personalities. Results of an online survey indicate that competence is a brand personality dimension mostly associated with academic logos, and excitement is the brand personality dimension mostly associated with athletic logos.     

The ivory tower revisited

The corollary of the concept of the ‘ivory tower’, as reflected in the writings of Plato and Newman amongst others, was, paradoxically, the vital importance of the university for wider society. Nevertheless from the mid-twentieth century, the esteem in which a ‘liberal’ university education was held was diminished by rising expectations that higher education institutions would actively contribute to addressing broader socio-economic challenges through ‘knowledge-transfer’, education for employment, and community service. However while this linear conception of universities' ‘third mission’ eroded their ‘ivory tower’ status, the death knell of the ‘ivory tower’ rings in contemporary literature on higher education, which articulates a dialectical view of its historical development in which the university and wider society are synthesised in the ‘engaged university’. With its focus on reciprocal ‘knowledge-exchange’, the co-creation of knowledge through teaching and learning, and civic engagement, the ‘engaged university’ embraces the ‘other’ as intrinsic to its identity. Yet arguably the increasing instrumentalism and democratisation of higher education are irrevocably eroding the academic freedom and institutional autonomy upon which universities' immeasurable contribution to society ultimately depends.     

In search of the new engineer: gender,age, and social class in information about engineering education

ABSTRACT

It is widely argued that engineering education needs to change in order to attract new groups of students and provide students with knowledge appropriate for the future society. In this paper we, therefore, investigate and analyse Swedish universities’ websites, focusing on what characteristics are brought to the fore as important for tomorrow’s engineers. The data consist of text and pictures/photos from nine different Engineering Mechanics programme websites. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, we identify three societal discourses concerning ‘technological progression’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘neoliberal ideals’, evident in the websites. These discourses make certain engineering identities possible, that we have labelled: traditional, contemporary, responsible, and self-made engineer. Our analysis shows that universities’ efforts to diversify students’ participation in engineering education simultaneously reveal stereotypical norms concerning gender and age. We also argue that strong neoliberal notions about the self-made engineer can derail awareness of a gendered, classed, and racialized society.     

基于红色文化的高校党建工作品牌化建设实践探究

就目前高校党建工作而言,我们需要在红色精神的感染下,将高校党建工作推向一个新的台阶,以此来实现高校党建工作的品牌化发展之路。为此,作者从一名普通的高校党建工作人员的角度出发,简要介绍了红色文化在高校党建工作品牌化建设中存在的问题,进而提出了红色文化在高校党建工作品牌化建设实践中的应用策略,从而更好地利用红色文化推动高校党建工作的开展。     

School Internet use,youth and risk: a social‐cultural study of the relation between staff views of online dangers and students' ages in UK schools

Internet access has recently been introduced into over 30,000 schools in the UK. While web provision has been heralded by some as an educational panacea, it is also recognised that there are dangers inherent in school Internet use. Adopting the cultural risk perspective, drawing upon a social‐cultural analysis of Internet regulation and utilising the concepts of liminality and ‘otherness’, this article explores staff Internet risk perspectives. While staff expressed concern about online pornography, hate‐sites, bomb/drug making websites, electronic communication, security issues and copyright violation, interpretations as to who was at risk varied with student age. Younger students' Internet activities were interpreted with reference to narratives of innocence, whilst the inappropriate online activities of youths were labelled as ‘dangerous’. In conclusion, it is argued that a distinction needs to be drawn between risks arising from liminality and those associated with ‘otherness’.     

Brand personality in higher education: anthropomorphized university marketing communications

While the university prospectus is recognized as an important marketing communication tool for higher education recruitment strategies, it has become overlooked as many researchers have focused on other communication channels, such as social media and websites. Although focus has been placed upon Higher Education Institution (HEI) brand differentiation, little is known about the similarities and differences between institutional marketing communications utilized to build their brands. This research seeks to explore and analyze the prospectuses of the top 10 HEIs in the UK and to draw comparison between their relative positions using a brand personality lens. While the brand personality trait of sincerity was common for all of the HEIs, there was clear differentiation on the basis of other traits, demonstrating that brand personality deepens our understanding of HEI positioning. Two main brand personality groupings were evident among the top 10 institutions: excitement and competence.     

Use your imagination: what UK universities want you to think of them

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.     

The hollowed-out university? A critical analysis of changing institutional and academic norms in UK higher education

This article argues that UK universities are at risk from a process of ‘hollowing out’ – that is, of becoming institutions with no distinctive social role and no ethical raison d'etre – and that this is a process which undermines the possibilities for meaningful institutional and academic identities. It begins with a condensed, and necessarily partial, review of recent UK higher education policy trends to indicate the historical context and direction of change and to highlight the growing separation of management and academic agendas and the linked rise in gloss and spin compared to academic substance. In the remainder of this article we focus on the normative dimension of these changes and unpack their implications for the nature of the university and of academic work. In so doing, we illustrate the breadth and depth of the threat posed by ‘hollowed-out’ universities, indicate alternative, more positive currents and call for a ‘re-valuation’ of the UK university.     

Branding a state university: doing it right

Shrinking financial support from governments and forecast declines in the college-going population have combined to exert tremendous pressure on institutions of higher learning. Branding as a strategy has become more popular as a way of differentiating an institution from its competition, but the complexity of higher education makes branding an even more difficult task than in traditional, commercial contexts. This paper describes the process adopted by a particular state university in the USA to navigate the branding terrain. Armed with research evidence, the university defined a brand position and implemented it through creative executions that resonated with diverse stakeholders. The paper suggests that the branding process, by taking several factors into account, generated a successful branding campaign measured in terms of receptivity to communication messages, but still does not answer the difficult questions about the role of branding in higher education.     

Denying the sexual subject: schools' regulation of student sexuality

This article examines some of the discourses and practices through which schools produce and regulate student sexual identities. It suggests that schools' ‘official culture’ can be seen as a discursive strategy which identifies a preferred student subject that is ‘non‐sexual’. This preference is communicated through the contradictory nature of discourses and practices which constitute ‘official school culture’ around student sexuality. These discourses work to simultaneously acknowledge student sexuality and position young people as ‘childlike’. Through the tension created by these contradictory positionings, schools can be seen to undermine the kind of sexual agency that young people might access to support their sexual well‐being. It is concluded that schools' deployment of discourses around sexuality produces student sexual positionings that may in fact dilute sexuality education's ‘effectiveness’ (in terms of the production of sexually responsible citizens).     

论农产品区域品牌伞策略背书效果的影响因素

农产品区域品牌伞策略强调的是农产品区域品牌作为伞品牌对伞下农产品及其品牌产生庇护和提携作用。本文试图探讨影响农产品区域品牌伞策略背书效果的因素,在参考相关文献的基础上,归纳出可能的三大类影响因素:农产品区域品牌伞背书策略(包括有无背书和背书程度)、农产品区域品牌特征(包括品牌强度和品牌形象)和农产品区域品牌与农产品契合度,并提出六个假说,籍此构建出一个影响农产品区域品牌伞策略背书效果的概念模型。     

The UK National Student Survey: An amalgam of discipline and neo-liberal governmentality

The UK National Student Survey (NSS) has high status on the agenda of UK universities. Its rise in status is linked to its influence on national rankings and associated funding streams referenced to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Consequently, many universities have implemented further assessments of student satisfaction, thereby putting additional internal performative pressures on courses and individual lecturers. The research contribution of this article comprises an analysis of the NSS through Foucault's notion of ‘governmentality’, with a particular focus on his work on ‘discipline’ and ‘neo-liberal governmentality’. More specifically, by utilising qualitative data from interviews, research diaries and observations, it will be demonstrated how the NSS functions as a ‘disciplinary’ technology of government which subjects lecturers, departments and universities to intersecting panoptic gazes and perpetual ratings. In addition, the NSS can also be considered ‘neo-liberal’ in that it governs the academic population through narrow conceptions of ‘freedom’ and omnipresent competition. The article proposes that it is through the amalgamated forces of intersecting panoptic gazes, on the one hand, and neo-liberal free-market principles, on the other, that student feedback develops its power to govern.