Marketing in Higher Education and its Role in Enhancing the World Ranking of Universities: An Exploratory Study in Iraqi Private Universities and Colleges

Ahmed Dheyauldeen Salahaldin^1* and Tarek Tume Atua^2
*Correspondence: Ahmed Dheyauldeen Salahaldin, Business Administration Department, College of Administration and Economics, University Of Anbar, Iraq, Email:

Keywords

Marketing in higher education. World ranking of universities. Sports exercise. Sports psychology.

Introduction

In modern organizations, which have become completely different from the traditional ones, especially in the field of marketing, marketing operations have become activities that support the basic criterion for progress. This rule can be applied to universities as advanced institutions that apply marketing elements in management activity, despite the difference in the scope and method of marketing activities in different universities. From each other, which depend on a combination of internal as well as external factors associated with current policies for the development of science and education, as well as with the situation on the labor market (Białoń, 2015). The first spark erupted in discussing the concept of marketing for universities at the time when the first non-governmental universities were established. In the early eighties, the scope of marketing activities was somewhat modest. With the progress of the first years of the twenty-first century, marketing was unnecessary, as this period was characterized by strong demand in the university market, so schools were not forced to compete for a larger number of candidate students, and after 2010, some problems appeared in the university market mainly due to the demographic situation, as well as due to the low demand by employers for university graduates. Hence the high unemployment rates among graduates, and therefore it can be said that the reasons for this were not the fault of the universities. Coinciding with this development, there was a clear change in the sectors of private higher education, through which they became strategic actors competing to achieve a larger market share. as (an administrative revolution), this revolution led the higher education sectors towards carrying out deep change processes, especially in the marketing aspects, as the responsibility of traditional universities revolved around teaching and research, which is (the first and second task), but these responsibilities expanded To add to it the processes of knowledge transfer and innovation in order to enhance its activities, which in turn became necessary for the development of social sustainability (the third task), which is known as the (second academic revolution) referred to by (Martin and Etzkowitz, 2000) in their theses, and accordingly this new thought stimulated universities to transform From being traditional educational and research universities to universities with marketing practices that play a key role in providing the necessary education for individuals in the future through the ability of its senior management to make decisions to adopt appropriate marketing strategies. Speaking, ability to work independently, act proactively, identify opportunities, solve problems creatively, focus on competency and based on one's ability to deal with unpredictable external environment and associated entrepreneurial marketing ways of doing, thinking, feeling, communicating and organizing and learning.

Despite the call for making these changes in the strategic field of universities as well as the organizational field, the reality of Iraqi universities is still far from these changes. It has significantly achieved advanced ranks in international classifications such as the classification (UI Green Matrix, Web Metrics, Iraqi ranks For Universities (IRU)) in addition to the lack of effective mechanisms for developing and implementing marketing strategies through which the level of these classifications can be raised, and if there are many universities that have structures, procedures and systems to guide them in their marketing operations and practices, the human dimension has a significant impact on the successful implementation of marketing plans, as their formulation and implementation depend on the decision-makers in the university, as it is necessary to go to look more seriously at the development of mechanisms that have an interactive role on the culture of the university, especially (marketing).

Literature Review

Marketing in higher education: development and concept

The first beginnings of the emergence of the concept of higher education marketing were in the mid-eighties and the basis of its emergence as a branch of the field of health care marketing (Hayes, 2007), and the idea crystallized after that, especially after universities had to compete for funding and more students (Drummond, 2004). Since the first indications of the emergence of marketing in higher education, there have been many concerns about mixing this concept in academia (Edmiston-Strasser, 2009, p. 146), and these ideas have often raised serious objections. According to (Anderson, 2008), the main objection against marketing practices by higher education institutions is that they will undermine academic standards of quality and excellence. This is shared by many scholars such as (Yesh Molesworth, Nixon, and Scullion 2009), who also warn that “parts of higher education may become pedagogically constrained by the market that has accompanied its expansion.” Despite these red flags and concerns raised about the impact of marketing on higher education, the fact of the matter is that government deregulation and increased competition (Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006) (Jongbloed, 2003) (Maringe, 2006) are forcing higher education institutions to On acknowledging the fact that they must market themselves to successfully compete in the national.

However, the research and ideas put forward in the marketing of higher education is still incoherent, even incomplete, and lacks theoretical models that reflect the specific context of higher education and the nature of their services.” This can be a hindrance to higher education marketing efforts, given the fundamentals of business marketing. Traditional marketing does not fully meet the needs of higher education institutions because it relies mostly on consumer models (Gibbs, 2002).For universities, marketing, especially relational, is based on building and maintaining a relationship of value exchange between the institution and the three main customer groups: alumni, current students, and future students (McAlexander & Koenig, 2001).

Marketing in higher education: reality and challenges

One of the effects of the increasing global competition among institutions of higher education in different countries of higher education is that retaining students with a university degree is as important as attracting and enrolling them (Elliot & Healy, 2001). This high competition between these institutions appeared as a result of an increasing number of students dropping out before completing their university studies, and there may be reasons for this dropout (Schertzer & Schertzer, 2004). This leakage, in turn, affects the rate of retention improvement positively on the financial performance of the business unit (Ryals, 2002). Consequently, the issue of student retention has become a broad and increasingly important strategic issue for institutions of higher education (Sauer & O'Donnell, 2006).

The second challenge in the marketing of higher education institutions lies in (who is the customer?), Defining the concept of the customer in the context of higher education institutions is not an easy task, as it has faced many criticisms and challenges. (Rivera-Torres,2005). In Therefore, students are seen as the main customers of an educational institution, which means that literature on customers is also relevant under the permanent marketing relations with Student.

Despite the recognition that higher education has many customers and stakeholders, some point out that students are the main customers because they are served directly by the organization. In addition, students are the ones who receive the most service from the university and its mission, so they must be considered the main customers and thinking Students are the main customers is a natural result of taking the marketing of universities seriously, and from the point of view of experts, enhancing the identity, image, brand and diversity of universities are important factors in winning over new students, however (little can be predicted about the behavior of the main buyer of students and how they choose the college ) (Hemsley–Brown & Goonawardana, 2007) and even in the late 1990s there are a lot of arguments about how prospective students can acquire, ingest and store data in order to make decisions about choosing a university/college, given the time spent by a student, and the complexity and variety of choices involved, that can categorize decision-making It is a comprehensive solution to the problems of choosing the appropriate college, and accordingly it emphasizes the rational choice of students, consumer logic and the drive for equality with the participation of students. This was reflected in the rationale for higher education as a good thing and the concomitant increase in students' responsibility towards financing it (Maringe, 2006).

Marketing theories and concepts, which have been effective in business, are now being gradually applied by many universities (Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006) The aim is to gain a competitive advantage. The higher education sector has two main advantages that affect the marketing ideas that can be applied to it. First, higher education in most countries is a non-profit sector, and therefore the marketing concepts applied to this sector do not work as well as they do in the business sector, where the primary goals are to make a profit. Higher education, the second is a service, and therefore all characteristics that apply to the marketing of services apply to higher education. Considering these two aspects, we will look at the extent to which the previously mentioned concepts of marketing apply to higher education.

Regarding the relationship between higher education institutions and markets, it is as shown in Figure 1. When both parties have high levels of maturity, they complement each other, value each other's comments and suggestions, and act responsibly. New products are developed jointly with market segments. The other extreme is where higher education is new and the market is also naive. In this relationship, institutions may have elements of insecurity as markets view them with suspicion. This mutual distrust leads to job problems on a daily basis (Ramachandran, 2010) (Figure 1).

Marketing and Ethical Issues in Higher Education

Marketing revolves around a fundamental and pivotal issue, which is creating value for those who need it. Which is translated from a marketing perspective into several directions, including: a focus on producing superior products and services (product offer), highlighting availability and access (production offer), as well as striving for personal and social convenience (customer's needs point of view) and finally into a theme focused Social justice issues, ethical management, and business administration (a social justice perspective). From this point of view, it can be said that these elements constitute the basic four-value proposal circle for any business or educational institution. Thus, the academic and educational community in universities pride themselves on providing superior programs for learners; ensuring that all those who need them have access to the programmers; That programs meet criteria of relevance, both to individuals and to the communities they serve, and finally, that fairness, justice and ethics underpin the way higher education is conducted. Figure 2 below are these key value propositions for universities that help define their marketing purposes (Britz, et al., 2006) (Figure 2).

Over time, universities became institutions of value that are “perhaps the most valuable institutions in modern society” (Scott, 2004, p. 439). With this primary responsibility, many scholars and thinkers suggest that universities have a special moral, social, and cultural role represented in the advancement of social capital and wealth, personality and civic responsibility. However, there is a stronger discourse (Veloutsou et al., 2005, p. 289). He argues that if universities do not use marketing they risk failing in recruitment (Bok, 2003) and ultimately failing in their missions.

Marketing mix for higher education

There is a clear difference between marketing in higher education and marketing related to other products and thus requires further adjustments in the marketing mix (Pratminingsih & Soedijati, 2011). The traditional and wellknown marketing mix consists of four different marketing elements (product, price, place and promotion), and with regard to the educational service, this mix can be adapted and made relevant to a certain degree. (Nicholls et al., 1995) However, speculation shows that this marketing mix is not suitable for service marketing. Additional PS was introduced and (Nicholls et al., 1995) emphasized that PS people and process provide better service performance. The four PS model is traditionally used in physical products. However, the educational services sector requires a different approach.

World ranking of higher education institutions

International relations in higher education were in the past characterized by fragility, although they often generate new developments with the exception of scientific research, and now with global developments at all levels, it has become inevitable that the growing influence of the global environment in and through systems and institutions of higher education, as flows, relations and cooperation become Cross-border competition is an essential dimension of national policy (Marginson & Wende, 2007).

There are many criteria used to evaluate excellence in universities, but the quality of teaching and research is the most important of these criteria, the most weighty among universities (Taylor & Braddock, 2007). As rating systems become a standard feature in higher education systems, they are increasingly being accepted as a tool for conducting 'quality assurance' (Sadlak, 2006). According to (Harvey and Green, 1993), quality, however, is related to the user and the conditions in which it is applied. Rating systems do not and cannot measure quality in higher education in its entirety, not least because there is no consensus on what constitutes quality in higher education. Thus rating systems better capture the needs of some stakeholders than others (Marginson, 2006).

The global classification systems differ according to different opinions and beliefs, that the procedure of classification systems can be at the national or international level, based on the institutional characteristics at the level of the institution or subsidiary institutions (Usher & Savino, 2006). While there are currently three institutional ranking systems that compare institutions on a global basis and several others on a national basis, there are many others that focus on specific disciplines.

Shin, (2011) believes that university ranking is a basic and effective measure of organizational effectiveness. We can identify three mechanisms for measuring quality in higher education institutions: ranking, quality assurance, and accountability. Although these three mechanisms had much in common as they provide information to the public and enhance institutional quality, they differ in their objectives, methods of evaluation, dissemination of results, and policy linkages (Shin, 2011). On the other hand, (Usher & Savino, 2006) specify that "university rankings are lists of particular groups of institutions (usually, but not always, within a single national jurisdiction), relatively arranged according to a common group. of indicators in descending order". They added that the rankings are also publicly available as information on their spending on education and to help parents and students decide which college to go to. Higher education world rankings are a single global marketplace for essentially similar institutions that can be arranged in a ranking table for comparison purposes (Marginson & van der Wende, 2007). It is also defined as a measure of quality assurance by being an external assessment of higher education institutions.

Methodology

Data collection

A set of important and contemporary measures was used to collect data on Iraqi private universities and colleges. These measurements include two axes, the first related to marketing for universities, the second is the global classification of universities, and the third combines the global classification of academics and marketing, through which it is possible to identify the effective role of marketing in the classification of universities, and the researcher conducted a group Among the interviews, which was the basic tool on which research relied in collecting information, as for the research community, it was a group of Iraqi private colleges and universities in the capital, Baghdad, numbering (26) universities and colleges, and their details are in Table 1 (Table 1).

Regarding the research sample, its details are in Table 2 and it was divided according to the job position (dean, assistant dean, head of department) and gender (male, female) and according to the degree (PhD, Master) and according to the scientific title (professor, assistant professor, teacher).

Variable Measurement

The researcher relied on the interview as a main tool in data collection, and the researcher chose a set of measures to reach the location of private universities and colleges in the research community in terms of classification and the nature of marketing activities that it is working to develop, and accordingly the researcher chose the (KPI) scale, which was adopted by (Stukalina, 2019). Since this measure is approved by the most sober international universities, which can be determined by determining the extent of the universities' commitment to applying marketing plans as well as consolidating their marketing culture in the corridors of universities, and according to that, the researcher adapted this measure to suit the environment of the current research community, and applied to a sample consisting of (347) people in (26) Iraqi private universities/ colleges, and Table (3) shows that (Table 3).

Note: The sample shown in the table is for information reinforcement purposes and is an additional sample to the original sample (deans, assistant deans, and heads of departments).

With regard to the university classification scale, the researcher developed a scale based on the classification of universities in terms of their position in the classification, and relied on the official websites of universities as well as the official websites of classifications on the Internet, as in Table 4 (Table 4).

Results

As shown in Table 3 and Table 4, which are standards for the marketing of Iraqi private universities as well as their classification, and accordingly, after referring to the sources shown in the tables as well as the interviews conducted by the researcher with the research sample consisting of (347) people Among them (dean, assistant dean, and head of department), the answers were divided as follows: (H: high satisfaction or a distinguished position, and the percentage ranges from (80%-100%) It is symbolized in green, M: Muddle satisfaction or an average position, and the percentage ranges from (70%-50%) It is symbolized in yellow, L: Low satisfaction and predictably weak, and the percentage ranges from (40% or less) It is symbolized in red. and tables 5, 6 show the results.

There are different and clear discrepancies between Iraqi private universities, and this may be due to several reasons, including: a difference in sticking to carrying out the efforts required for marketing activities, as Iraqi private universities are different in terms of human, financial and information capabilities, and this in turn was reflected in the marketing method of those universities, as well as a difference in their technological capabilities, And thus leads to discrepancies in interest in terms of promoting the university’s services or the difference in the university’s location compared to other universities, whether at the local or global level, as well as discrepancies in the nature of adhering to the functional expertise and skills of each university, all of this in turn was reflected clearly and tangibly on the marketing reality of universities Which in turn created these clear discrepancies in table 5 (Tables 5& 6).

The statistics in table 6 confirmed that most Iraqi private universities seek to apply the requirements of some local and international classifications to enter the list of the best universities. At the level of Iraq, as the idea of the Iraqi classification project for universities began in the Quality Assurance Department / Quality Assurance and Academic Accreditation Department / Scientific Supervision and Evaluation Authority in (2016) in order to build a national project that adopts international quality standards in order to spread the spirit of scientific competition between universities, colleges and departments with the aim of advancement The educational process as a whole by improving its environment and enabling its students to excel in various fields of work and improving the performance of its faculty members and highlighting its scientific achievements by publishing its research in discreet scientific journals, and winning scientific awards and others, and accordingly, and within this classification, the ranking of Iraqi private universities varied from the advanced classifications to medium to low ratings, and these discrepancies are due to the extent of their focus on marketing activities. In table 5, we show that the universities that are most interested in marketing activities are the highest rated, and with regard to the second classification, it is (Webo Metrics). Where it is issued in the months of January and July of each year, and depends on measuring the performance of universities through their websites within a set of criteria, and accordingly we see that the majority of Iraqi private universities, the research community, have entered this classification, some of them are in advanced sequences, some are medium, and some have not yet entered, as for the last classification It is (UI Green Metric) and this classification takes into account a set of criteria for classifying the university, namely: (work environment and infrastructure on campus, energy and climate change, waste management, optimal use of water, interest in environmental sustainability in the field of education and offering courses specialized in the environment and sustainable development within its academic programs), and the Iraqi private universities, the research community, came in different ranks within this classification, some of them came with advanced ranks and others It has medium ranks, and it did not enter the classification (Table 7).

Conclusions

Iraqi private universities face many internal and external challenges, which made the higher administrations in those universities serve as deterrent strategies for these challenges through their keenness to move to modern trends in marketing and the use of effective marketing tools to develop their levels of performance, and the interest appears clearly through the keenness of university leaders to Developing distinguished creative ideas that increase their ability towards creating a suitable ground for entrepreneurial ideas that would develop academic work in them, as well as forming a mixture of marketing components that increase their potential towards achieving competition, and the evidence for this is the few differences in interest between these components in terms of Taking care of its social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter) as well as its official websites on the Internet, and ensuring that it promotes itself to the public (students) through various means of communication, and working to measure the degree of satisfaction of students, employees and employers, which showed good levels of satisfaction.

The international rankings are also essential and important for the promotion of these universities, which showed that Iraqi universities occupy good ranks in terms of global and local rankings. It was found that each of these universities achieved good interest in its tools, strategies and marketing activities. This is clear evidence of the primary and influential role of marketing activities in higher education on the university's classification among other universities.

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