Inclusive Integrated Marketing Framework for Relationship Quality and Value Co-creation for Higher Education: An Abstract

One of the defining characteristics of higher education is creating relationships with the stakeholders who define the ecosystem. The associations have become increasingly important for higher education marketing and developing strategies of co-creation. Being a highly knowledge-intensive industry driven by human capital, higher education universities need to improve their relationship with the stakeholders including the learners, faculty, administrators and industry professionals. Though different dimensions of relationship quality have received great academic attention across disciplines, there is still a need to explore the role of various intrinsic and extrinsic cues influencing relationship quality from the lens of value co-creation in higher education marketing. Accordingly, this study focuses on discussing the antecedents (intrinsic and outside) of relationship quality between the universities and the stakeholders in the digital era. It proposes an integrated higher education marketing framework using the Cue-Utilization approach with perceived situational appropriateness as the frame of reference. A multi-stakeholder perspective is explored using semi-structured in-depth interviews with participants from India, UK, Nigeria, and Dubai. The study’s findings suggest that the discussed intrinsic and extrinsic cues are the surrogate indicators of high relationship quality with the stakeholders. A high level of relationship quality enhances stakeholder engagement in higher education marketing and leads to value co-creation with the universities. Also, digital interactions can influence the quality of the relationship between the universities and the stakeholders. This adds yet another layer of complexity in redesigning the startegies for higher education. Therefore, nurturing the relationships and increasing digital scalability can constitute to be the most relevant factors for the growth of higher education marketing. The implications of the findings are discussed to understand the scope for an inclusive framework and policies needed for higher education marketing both in the context of the ongoing pandemic and the post-pandemic era.