Article One: Inside the University Technology Transfer Office: Mission Statement Analysis
Contextual Background
Marketing in higher education is no longer just about enrollment as these institutions have developed other ways of earning an income. The article by Fitzgerald and Cunningham (2016) is predicated on technology transfer offices (TTO), which have become a leading way of modern university marketing. Under TTO, universities market their intellectual property for use under license by other organizations, for a fee. The content of the instant journal article regards how TTO mission statements of universities operate as a bearing factor to the effectiveness of TTO marketing in those particular universities. From the basis of the instant essay, Fitzgerald and Cunningham (2016) enables an understanding of how the drafting of a mission statement in itself can form part of the marketing strategy of an institution of higher learning.
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Data Collection, Argument, and Analysis
The data that is synthesized in this paper includes the mission statements of respective universities on the one part and data relating to the proceeds of TTO licensing within the same universities. The researcher selected 7 Irish universities, collected their TTO mission statements and secondary data about the respective TTO departments of these universities. Pearce and David (1987) were used to analyze the TTO mission statements as compared to the secondary information gleaned about the TTOs so as to assess the marketing strength of the TTOs. Finally, the success of the TTO was compared with the strength of the TTO mission statement. The hypothesis that was tested within the research, analysis, and arguments made in research was that a stronger TTO mission statement that is relevant to the nature of the TTO increases the marketing value of the TTO
Findings and Critique
Based on the findings, discussion, and conclusion, the researchers arrived at the conclusion that a strong and relevant mission statement had a direct correlation with the marketability of a university TTO department. The findings were, however, limited by the exponentially small size of the sample used. Nonetheless, the research itself, the hypothesis upon which it was based and the eventual conclusion is both relevant and useful to modern institutions of higher learning. The nature of the research and the qualifications of the research enhance its validity and reliability.
Article II: Sameness and Difference
Contextual Background
The journal article by Kosmützky and Krücken (2015) relates to the use of the marketing strategies of specificity and differentiation when creating university mission statements. The basis for the instant research is that universities are continually adopting branding as part of their marketing strategy. As an integral part of the branding exercise is the mission statement. Universities are no longer seeking to market themselves as excellent institutions of higher learning only as they also seek to reflect themselves as being predicated on a specialized concept that makes them unique and different from other universities. As per Kosmützky and Krücken (2015), the wording and spirit of the mission statements are among the ways that universities enhance their unique brands.
Data Collection, Argument, and Analysis
The researchers evaluated the mission statements of 110 German institutions of higher learning, 42 being ordinary universities and 58 applied science universities. Upon analysis, the mission statements of three universities were selected for further research which involved analyzing publications, websites, and literature of the respective universities so as to establish their peculiar prerequisites. The mission statements were then assessed to establish if they created an impression of the peculiarities of the institutions for which they were created. The general idea behind the research was to establish if the universities have taken steps to include the peculiarities of the institutions in the mission statements.
Findings and Critique
Based on the findings, discussion, and conclusion made in the research, it is evident that German universities have included mission statements as an important element in their branding. The uniqueness of the universities as compared to their competitors was found to be an important branding prerequisite and also one that was reflected in the universities respective mission statements. The instant research also evaluated the universities studied over a period of time leading to the conclusion that uniqueness in branding and also in mission statements is relatively new and can be traced to the 1990s. The nature of the research carried out and the discussion made does satisfy the conclusion arrived at by the said research.
Article III: An Analysis of the Mission and Vision Statements on the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions
Contextual Background
Ozdem (2011) is a research journal that reports on the use of mission statements as a marketing tool that reflects the strategic plans of universities. The said research operates on the hypothesis that universities use mission statements as a means to communicate with their target markets which include students they intend to enroll and organizations they intend to partner with. The researchers thus collected a number of mission statements and analyzed them to arrive at the message trends that universities seek to communicate.
Data Collection, Argument, and Analysis
The main source of information for research in the instant journal article is university websites in general and specifically the mission statements and strategic plans as presented therein. The total sample for the research was all public universities in Turkey, out of which 72 suitable universities were selected. The websites of the selected universities were studied to learn their vision and mission statements and also their strategic plans. The marketing trends as reflected in the mission statements were compared with the strategic plans, the classified into specific groups based on the messages they communicated to their audiences. In the analysis and discussion, the researchers sought commonalities between the respective mission statement and strategic plans.
Results and Critic
The results of the research above found a lot of repetitiveness in the mission statements of the selected universities. The respective mission statements did indeed reflect the marketing strategic plans of their institutions but these strategic plans did have a lot of commonalities. For example, the statements “ Having universal, sufficient, and competent knowledge ” was found to be repeated in a majority of the mission statements. Specificity and differentiation was thus not part of the marketing strategies of this Turkish universities. The instant research was relatively simple and straightforward as it was predicated on publicly available data yet its conclusion was uniquely insightful.
References
Fitzgerald, C., & Cunningham, J. A. (2016). Inside the university technology transfer office: mission statement analysis. The Journal of Technology Transfer , 41 (5), 1235-1246
Kosmützky, A., & Krücken, G. (2015). Sameness and difference: Analyzing institutional and organizational specificities of universities through mission statements. International Studies of Management & Organization , 45 (2), 137-149
Ozdem, G. (2011). An Analysis of the Mission and Vision Statements on the Strategic Plans of Higher Education Institutions. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice , 11 (4), 1887-1894.
