The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms Biographical notesJanja Komljenovic is an EU Marie Curie doctoral fellow at University of Bristol. She is currently researching transformations in the higher education sector, with a specific focus on higher education market-making and industry creation. Susan L. Robertson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol. She has a long standing interest in the political economy of education and has written on higher education markets and trade. The Dynamics of 'Market-Making' in Higher Education AbstractThis paper examines what to some is a well worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as 'marketization' in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of 'market making' is developed in two (dialectically related) moves. First, we identify a range of market exchanges that have emerged in the context of wider ideological and political changes in the governance of higher education to make it a more globally-competitive producer of knowledge, and a services sector. Second, we explore the ways in which making markets involves a considerable amount of micro-work, such as the deployment of a range of framings, and socio-technical tools (Çalışkan andCallon 2009, 2010;Berndt and Boeckler 2012). Taken together, these market-making processes are recalibrating and remaking the structures, social relations and subjectivities, within and beyond the university and in turn reconstituting the university and the higher education sector.

Digital Learning in the UK: Sociological Reflections on an Unequal Marketplace

“…Just below the world-leading elite, there is sprawling region where market dynamism actually seems to lie. Here, reputation and branding are at the heart of the 'market making' performances described by Komljenovic and Robertson (2016): Alliances, mediations, partnerships and 'market encounters' (see also Çalışkan and Callon 2010). For these institutions, brand and reputation are locked in a tension between commercialization and traditionalism, and the upward pull of the top end is still strong.…”

“…The aim was to describe the current landscape of digital education on its own terms: A marketplace in a state of flux. While the article adopts a conceptual perspective appreciative of the socio-economic life of global higher education, replete with market-making performances and networks (Komljenovic and Robertson 2016), the actual empirical work amounted to intelligence gathering from non-academic sources, such as institutional and corporate websites, higher education media outlets and 'ed-tech' blogs. Indeed, this exercise was the only way to collect information about online provision in the UK, as systematic data about this area is not currently available.…”

From Inauguration to Commercialisation: Incremental yet Contested Transitions Redefining the National Interests of International Degree Programmes in Finland

“…These marketing practices are linked to broader national branding operating beyond the education sector (Lomer et al, 2018), which also involves the privatization of education support services, leading to a reconfiguration of universities as consumers of these services (Komljenovic & Robertson, 2016). In Komljenovic and Robertson's (Komljenovic & Robertson, 2016) terms, international education can be positioned as an inside-out and frequently forprofit market wherein universities are the providers of the education service. This commercialization can be contextualized within broader ideological, political and economic shifts towards the marketization of education (Williams, 2013).…”

“…Marketing has developed greatly over the course of nearly a decade. Since the framing of the IDPs has shifted to the education export industry, the responsibility for marketing has partly shifted to private companies, simultaneously defining the universities as buyers of marketing services and sellers of education products (see Komljenovic & Robertson, 2016). An excerpt from the internationalization strategy illustrates this point: '[t]he company markets Finnish know-how using a one-stop-shop principle and supports the access of Finnish know-how to global markets with education products created on the basis of the strength and cooperation of higher education institutes and other institutes' (MEC, 2017a, 25;transl.…”

Empowerment for individual agency: an analysis of international organizations’ curriculum recommendations

“…Conditionality policies imposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were (and still are) salient examples of such coercive policy influence. Similarly, the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services has legally-binding authority (Komljenovic and Robertson 2016). More recent contributions stress, however, IOs' normative influence as 'teachers of norms' (Finnemore 1993) or 'knowledge brokers' (Jakobi 2006).…”