The research explores the definition of the reputation of a higher educational institution (HEI) as an integral concept and evaluates the role of the reputational responsibility of universities in enhancing the competitiveness of the educational institution, influencing its position in domestic and international rankings. The research pays…

Rankings dominate higher education policy making, although little is known about the experiences of those involved in perpetuating rankings. This paper explores middle-level academic leaders' sensemaking about university rankings and related policies in East Asia. Since university rankings have affected higher education policies and strategies…

The relevance of studying the theory and practice of building the reputation of higher educational institutions is of an enduring nature due to the fixed cyclical nature of their work process and the high degree of specificity of the results obtained. In the second and third decades of the twenty-first century, the rethinking and development of…

The research aims to identify the themes that leading universities worldwide focus on when constructing their image. The authors selected 50 international universities, leaders in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE) for the year 2023, for the research. The research was carried out using content analysis. The material for…

Universities are increasingly perceived as strategic organizational actors that position themselves in the competition for reputation, resources, and talent. This study asks whether such positioning within the organizational field can explain variance in university governance structures. We quantitatively explore and explain the distribution of…

This article explores the global aspirations of Chinese universities by examining the Chinese scholarly conceptualisation of guoji yingxiangli (literally meaning international influence) and its connection to the world-centred idea of tianxia. We interviewed 22 Chinese experts in education and conducted a documentary analysis of relevant Chinese…

Universities are specific local entities, and as such are in competition with one another for resources and prestige. The general tone of the literature--which sees universities mainly as specific organizations--is quite negative, with competition leading to destructive market and political forces. The tone is surprising, given the extraordinary…

This study focuses on the role of visual resources in constructing the brand identity of Chinese universities. By drawing on the theoretical concept of corporate visual identity (CVI), this study analyzed universities' logos and typography of names from the social semiotic approach. Nine elite Chinese universities were selected as the corpus to…

The dramatic salience of university rankings is usually attributed to a number of macro-level trends, such as neoliberal ideology, the spread of audit culture, and globalization in the broadest sense. We propose that the institutionalization of university rankings cannot be fully accounted for without a better understanding of the meso-level…

The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies used by universities to promote their positive images. A university in China known for its success in promoting its image is cited as a typical example of the strategies it employs. The researchers were given permission to review related files of the university offices and relevant university…

Although higher education is positioned as a site of opportunity for young women in the UK, not all female applicants experience straightforward pathways into this arena. This paper focuses on a group of 16 high-achieving girls from working-class backgrounds who are striving for academic success, in the form of top grades and places at high-tariff…

University rankings have gained prominence in tandem with the global race towards excellence and as part of the growing expectation of rational, scientific evaluation of performance across a range of institutional sectors and human activity. While their omnipresence is acknowledged, empirically we know less about whether and how rankings matter in…

Purpose: This study aims to explore how student recruitment practitioners at regional Australian universities strategise student recruitment efforts in Thailand. There is scarce research addressing regional universities, with prior studies focusing on metropolitan universities. Similarly, most prior studies have focused on high-volume markets,…

Underlying current research on China's world-class university (WCU) policy approaches are analytical foci that privilege the agency of social actors and the problem-solving approach to policy analysis. Foucauldian poststructuralists draw our attention to policy document, which is seen as a discourse that organizes and administers society. Inspired…

This study investigates the influence of university brand image, satisfaction, and alumni's university identification on positive word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions. The model is tested using data collected from a sample of 1000 university alumni, an important and under-researched stakeholder group. A contribution is provided by enhancing our…