Learning From the Best: Implications From Successful Companies for Higher Education Management

Abstract

At the end of the first decade of the new millenium, the circumstances for both academic institutions and the marketplace could be easily described as adverse. A global financial crisis had increased pressure on the budgets of universities and on their actual as well as prospective students. Companies that had traditionally supported higher education were struggling with survival. In many cases, public money had been shortened or just distributed over an increasing number of recipients in the last years. In Austria and Germany, the university sector had also experienced a shift toward privatization of state universities and the foundation of private universities. By all means, competition for scarce resources in the academic environment—budgets, excellent staff, and students among others—had increased, forcing higher education institutions to become more market oriented. As in business, agility is demanded for universities if they want to win a competitive edge (Shattock 2000).