Emergence and early institutionalization of competition in higher education: evidence from Finnish business schools

Abstract

This paper investigates the emergence and early institutionalization of competition in higher education (HE), specifically in business schools. First, building on key contributions from economics, management studies, sociology, and HE research, we develop propositions on competition in HE and formulate our theoretical framework. Second, we apply this framework to explore competition in Finnish business schools. We argue that business schools constitute an interesting field for studying competition in HE because they are the frontrunners and champions of competition-based views in HE. Our main contribution is a novel explanation of the preconditions, emergence, and early processes of institutionalization that drive HE institutions to compete and collectively produce the observed competitive transformation.

Adaptive learning through technology: a technical review and implementation

“…Atfield et al, 2021;Cheng et al, 2022)-all within an increasingly competitive marketplace (e.g. Szekeres, 2010;Kettunen et al, 2022). Such challenges have been further met by the higher education classroom being increasingly made up of a diverse set of student populations, with learners from varied backgrounds and varied educational experiences (Boelens et al, 2018) while possessing varied levels of knowledge and skills when entering the setting (Wanner and Palmer, 2015).…”

“…Higher education institutions are encountering considerable transformation in the face of issues such as growing student cohorts and student mobility (e.g., Hewitt, 2020;UNESCO, 2023), heightening pressure on reducing levels of student non-continuation across programmes (e.g., Hillman, 2021), and ensuring students are employable post-graduation (e.g., Atfield et al, 2021;Cheng et al, 2022) -all within an increasingly competitive marketplace (e.g., Szekeres, 2010; Kettunen et al, 2022). Such challenges have been further met by the higher education classroom being increasingly made up of a diverse set of student populations, with learners from varied backgrounds and varied educational experiences (Boelens et al, 2018) whilst possessing varied levels of knowledge and skills when entering the setting (Wanner and Palmer, 2015).…”