Institutional Niche: Define or Die

Institutional Niche: Define or Die

Jerrid P. Freeman, Dean L. Bresciani
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 9
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6560-5.ch014
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Abstract

Never before in our contemporary era has higher education experienced such intensity of competition for students, and a shift to consider higher education a private rather than as traditionally considered social good. Those tensions have resulted in not only a broadening definition of marketplace borders, but also a move toward organizational survival in terms of how institutions currently operate and exist. Historically, higher education's response to both marketplace pressures and opportunities has been to institutionally expand and attempt to accommodate a broader market niche. That strategy appears to be changing rather dramatically and quickly. The new model of institutional self-definition is to create and articulate a defined, narrowed, and consistent institutional scope with the intent of mastering that niche. Successfully branding that niche and demonstrating how an institution not only fits its niche, but also excels in it, is becoming a means to, at the very least, stabilize, if not ostensibly grow, enrollments and public support.
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A Changing Landscape: Institutional Niche

Economics is a discipline through which to consider past and current organizational response behaviors within the marketplace of higher education. Historically, higher education’s response to both marketplace pressures and opportunities has been to institutionally expand and attempt to accommodate a broader market niche. Broadening programs and degrees offered, providing services for all student types, and reaching students with every possible modality. That strategy appears to be changing rather dramatically and on a provocatively short timeline.

In understanding broader public organizational behavior, and filtering higher education organizational behavior through that lens of change, Bresciani (1996) draws upon and discusses a number of commonly held neo-classical economic theories. The first, advanced by German economist Adolph Wagner as early as 1958, is the “law of rising public expenditures.” Although this theory references public sector agencies and the provision of public goods, in easy application the premise encompasses higher education institutions.

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