Stakeholder Analisys of Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

In recent years, knowledge, the human capital, and learning organizations have become the key determinants of current global progress. Higher educational sector has been faced with globalization and strong competition. Therefore, the need has arisen for professional management structures and more entrepreneurial style of leadership. Organizations have been transformed to learning organizations by the life long learning concept, while the knowledge management has become the leading tool in building competitive advantages. High education organizations are being pushed forward by competitiveness. That pressure requires continuous improvement emphasizing the need for measuring outcomes and building excellence. The paradigm of stakeholder analysis, applied to specific determinations of the system of higher education institutions, could be a good way for comprehending and predicting interests, needs and requirements of all key players in the environment. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the possibility of understanding the connection between higher education institutions and its environment in context of stakeholder analysis. The paper uses literature as a basis in identifying critical parameters for stakeholder analysis and its implementation to higher education sector. The findings of the paper reveal that the concept of stakeholders is critical and difficult to implement everywhere and to everything. There is a clear attempt of all organizations, especially those that create and encourage knowledge, to understand the actions of all participants and predictions of interests and requirements of the changing environment.

Role of stakeholders leading to development of higher education services

“…This new area includes knowledge management, cooperation between different sectors of the economy and society, and the pursuit of a new (additional) role for knowledge and higher education in the changing world. This way, HEI mission expanded across the frontiers of studies and research incorporating the service for society, which requires cooperation and partnership (Maric, 2013). A contemporary university perceives the third mission as an opportunity to concentrate and strengthen the capabilities of studies and research without indicating the ways this mission should be reached.…”

“…Stakeholders can be "all agents (representatives), who can influence or become influenced when implementing organisation's objectives" and" any individual or a group, which can influence or can be influenced when implementing organisation's objectives" (Pesqueux & Damak-Ayadi, 2012;Bourne & Walker, 2005;Mainardes, Alves & Raposo, 2012). Stakeholders acting in field of higher education are interested in the activities of HEIs and are most frequently divided into internal and external (Melewar & Akel, 2005), primary and secondary (Maric, 2013) or overt and latent (Jongbloed, Enders & Salerno, 2008;Garvare & Johansson, 2010;Mainardes, Alves & Raposo, 2013). Higher education stakeholders could also be categorised as commercial and non-commercial (Melewar & Akel, 2005).…”

What’s the Purpose of Higher Education? Proposing Meso-Level Operationalizable Superordinate Strategic Goals for Higher Education Developing the Higher Education Strategy Model and Metrics (HESM & M)

“…and complexity research (cf. Maric, 2013;Dörner, 2012;Clark, Howard, & Early, 2006). Consequently, the model's theoretical framework is interdisciplinary.…”

Value creation for stakeholders in higher education management

“…Therefore, the need to identify just who those stakeholder groups in HEIs are arises (Mainardes et al, 2011). John Borwick (2013) built a high-level map of the system of US higher education by including all the external stakeholders involved in HEIs and distinguished how they are related and interconnected within each other.…”

“…These linkages help to manage in and out operations through distribution channels and to perceive all the participants in the process of internal and external practices (Maric, 2013;Robbins et al, 2008). Thus, the importance to identify key stakeholders occurs in order to understand how much the variety of stakeholders have changed and what is the most important, how strongly these groups are related to each other.…”