Faculty responses to business school branding: a discursive approach
ISSN: 0309-0566
Article publication date: 12 February 2018
Issue publication date: 16 April 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The branding of universities is increasingly recognized to present a different set of challenges than in corporate, for-profit sectors. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how faculty make sense of branding in the context of higher education, specifically considering branding initiatives in business schools.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on qualitative interviews with faculty regarding their responses to organizational branding at four business schools. Discourse analysis was used to analyze the interview data.
Findings
The study reveals varied, fluid and reflexive faculty interpretations of organizational branding. Faculty interviewed in the study adopted a number of stances towards their schools’ branding efforts. In particular, the study identifies three main faculty responses to branding: endorsement, ambivalence and cynicism.
Originality/value
The study contributes by highlighting the ambiguities and ambivalence generated by brand management initiatives in the higher education context, offering original insights into the multiple ways that faculty exploit, frame and resist attempts to brand their organizations. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for branding in university contexts.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments. The authors are grateful to the management and faculty members at all four business schools involved in this study. The authors would also like to acknowledge the initiative taken by Mats Alvesson at Lund University to bring together scholars to examine and discuss the implications of branding higher education.
Citation
Frandsen, S., Gotsi, M., Johnston, A., Whittle, A., Frenkel, S. and Spicer, A. (2018), "Faculty responses to business school branding: a discursive approach", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52 No. 5/6, pp. 1128-1153. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-11-2016-0628
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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