Between Mission and Market Position

Empirical findings on mission statements of German Higher Education Institutions

authored by

Anna Kosmützky

Abstract

Higher education institutions on their way to quasi-markets have to identify their distinct characteristics and nowadays, most of the German universities have published a mission statement. But since the tasks and mission of German universities are set for them by state regulation, the paper analyses for what mission statements have been introduced and what universities are stating in their mission statements. Addressing this question, the article reveals that mission statements contribute to constructing corporate images. Instead of defining a single overarching organizational identity that is distinct from other universities, mission statements express the tasks and missions that are set for them by higher education law and supplement these missions with distinct images. An important implication of this symbolic profile-building is that the underlying intuitional models of these images are related to the history, subject profile and often geographical location of the universities and thus, contribute to creating competitive fields of universities.

External Organisation(s)

University of Kassel

Type

Article

Journal

Tertiary Education and Management

Volume

18

Pages

57-77

No. of pages

21

ISSN

1358-3883

Publication date

03.2012

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 4 - Quality Education

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2011.617466 (Access: Unknown)