Institutional Image and Retention

CHARLES BELANGER, JOAN MOUNT AND MATHEW WILSON

INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE AND RETENTION

ABSTRACT. The image or ‘branding’ issue has become a strategic managerial decisionfor postsecondary institutions because it impacts upon the desire of a student to persist andcomplete, or to drop out. This paper examines the relationship that exists between students’expectations and their lived experience as reported by students in an actual institutionalsetting. It is a case study which suggests actionable outcomes for the particular institution.More importantly, the approach used here is easily replicable and may be employed toprovide useful information for image enhancement in other university settings.

INTRODUCTION

Today’s university pays considerable attention to the recruitment ofstudents. It tends to present itself as the best overall, or the best in someacademic areas, or on some desired dimensions such as ‘most technolo-gically progressive’ or the ‘most caring’, in order to impart to parents,graduating high school students and school counsellors that it should be theinstitution of choice in today’s competitive arena. As a result of decades ofgovernment budget tightening and increased competition from corporate,independent and electronic education providers, traditional universitieshave been pushed to ‘brand’ themselves more clearly as having a set ofunique and desirable attributes that appeal to potential students (Frank2000).

The image or branding issue has become a strategic managerialdecision since it impacts upon the ability of an institution to recruit desiredfaculty members, to attract research money as well as philanthropic dona-tions, and to draw and retain motivated students. It has been asserted thatthe probability of students dropping out increases as their incoming expect-ations and actual experience at the institution diverge (Terkla & Pagano1993). What happens when an institution presents a somewhat inflatedpicture of itself and projects an image that does not harmonise with itstrue assets or track record? Besides the ethical and legal issues involvedwith unrealistic branding, it has been well documented that institutions arerendering a disservice to themselves by increasing a student’s propensityto drop out at that institution (Levitz et al. 1999).

Tertiary Education and Management 8: 217–230, 2002.© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

218 CHARLES BELANGER ET AL.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how an institution cango about finding out about three key elements: its incoming students’expectations based on admission materials and personal contacts; theiractual university experience after one year on campus; and the image ofthe institution according to those who control the agenda, namely seniormanagement. An awareness of disparities among these three elementscan suggest modifications to improve some facets of the image projected,or the reality behind the image, or both. In summary, the image whichstudents garner can be rendered more favourable to the institution, andthe experience that students live more congruent with that image, thusincreasing the likelihood of student retention. This paper presents a methodfor addressing these goals.

DEFINITION, FORMATION AND MEASUREMENT OF AN IMAGE

Although the concept ‘image’ can be traced back to at least the time ofthe Ancient Greeks, its usage ascribed to items such as products, insti-tutions and organisations, individuals and places, is a post-World War IIphenomenon invented by the USA and the UK (Meech 1996). In the UnitedStates, retention of students at colleges and universities has long been ahigh-profile concern for educators (Murtaugh et al. 1999), because of thecompeting needs of their dual system of higher education (public versusprivate) and the sheer number of postsecondary education providers. Incontrast, relatively little research has been done in most other countries.

Image is defined as the sum of beliefs, attitudes, stereotypes, ideas,relevant behaviours or impressions that a person holds with respect toan object, person or organisation (Prahalad & Hamel 1990; Kotler &Andreasen 1996). According to Treadwell and Harrison (1994), images arefrequently referred to as the way in which external stakeholders perceivean organisation and are communicated by a whole set of beliefs about anobject, and not just a single belief. The same two authors indicate that anorganisational image is the result of an individual’s self-reported responsesto an organisation. These responses emerge from any interaction plannedor unplanned, persuasive or non-persuasive, mediated or interpersonal. Anorganisation’s public image is often the result of public interaction withthe organisation’s members. Larger organisations such as universities tryto impart to their members and to the public an image that they haveconstructed. However, they may not succeed in conveying the intendedimage to either audience, due to the fact that images are the result ofthe choices, actions and social interactions of involved stakeholders. Sinceaffective and behavioural responses of stakeholders to an organisation are

INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE AND RETENTION 219

based on their images of that organisation, it is in an organisation’s bestinterest to understand its image, to work on ways to improve upon thatimage, and to ensure that its image reflects the current institution (Terkla& Pagano 1993).

There are numerous ways in which to measure or decipher theimage of organisations, products and services. According to Leister andMacLachlan (1975), an image is an aggregative concept, to be measuredby combining the viewpoints of many. They also argue that images mustbe measured for several factors at once in order to obtain any mean-ingful information. There are two distinct classes of image measurementtechniques: judgment and response methods (Carlivati 1990). In genericterms, a judgment method provides image labels to respondents who,in turn, rate, rank or interpret them in relation to the organisation. Itemlists and semantic differential scales are examples of judgment methodsthat are inexpensive and easy to use. Alternatively, response methodsinclude unstructured interviews, structured interviews and multidimen-sional scaling and are more costly and more technical to administerand evaluate, particularly with respect to multidimensional scaling. Otherresearchers such as Kotler and Andreasen (1996) and Van Riel et al. (1998)present more detailed techniques for measuring corporate images.

DEFINITION, IMPACTS AND CAUSES OF RETENTION

Retention rate is the number of first-time, full-year, degree seeking first-year students who graduate within x years after entering university,whereas an institution’s attrition rate is the rate at which students leaveschool before graduating. There are a number of consequences for aninstitution as a result of attrition – i.e., students who drop out (Levitz et al.1999). An institution can be adversely affected through an unhappy studentwho drops out and negatively influences others about their potentialchoice of that institution. Furthermore, attrition can also have considerablenegative effects on the financial situation of an institution by incurring asignificant amount of lost revenue over the life of student cohorts.

Arguably, institutional retention can be used as a performance indic-ator for a higher education institution. According to Levitz et al. (1999),a high retention rate is an indication that an institution is meeting studentexpectations with regard to satisfaction and success. They go on to proposethat retention can be used as a measure of the amount of student growth,how valued and respected students feel on campus, and how effectively thecampus delivers what the students expect, need and want.


Levitz and Hovland (1998) have also suggested a number of issuesthat motivate or impact upon a student’s decision to drop out. Theseissues can be classified into the following five categories: personal (e.g.,stressed, uninformed), social (e.g., negative peer pressure, little involve-ment with faculty members or advisers), academic (e.g., underchallenged,too little feedback), life issues (e.g., home and family difficulties, finan-cial circumstances), and institutional issues (e.g., bureaucratic problems,poor or indifferent teaching). The American Association of State Collegesand Universities (AASCU 1997) has acknowledged that certain condi-tions, such as orientation programmes, early warning systems identifyingstudents with difficulties, and administrative monitoring of campus effec-tiveness in assessing and retaining students are common at institutions withhigher retention rates.

It has been argued that the greater the congruence between a student’svalues, goals and attitudes and those of the institution, the more likely thatthe student will remain in school (Pantages & Creedon 1978; Lenninget al. 1980; Pascarella 1982; Forest 1984; Crockett 1984; Creamer &Atwell 1984; Pascarella et al. 1986; Seidman 1989). Along the same vein,Tinto’s research (1987) points out that as dissatisfaction and discontentincrease, so does the possibility of students withdrawing from an insti-tution. Higher retention rates reported by prestigious private universitiesand by state supported institutions with a national reputation can be attrib-uted to the student selection process that increases the compatibility ofthe student’s interests with the institution’s environment. AASCU research(1997) also confirms that institutions with relatively high graduation rateshave more stringent admissions criteria, and as a result attract studentswhose attitudes are similar to those of that institution.

Adequate information can enhance morale and retention. Students’pre-entry images of institutions are usually the result of interactionsand contact with recruiters, organisational literature and other sources(Treadwell & Harrison 1994). Seidman (1989) suggests that perceptionsof first year students are partly the result of an institution’s admissionsmaterial and personal contacts with the institution. Litten and Brodigan(1982) further support this notion with their research which found thatstudents and their parents obtained information from several sources.These sources included high school counsellors, institutional literature,campus personnel, students encountered through on site visits (e.g.,student representatives, current students) and other networking.


RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The question to be answered in this study was whether there existed adifference between the reported experience of second-year students duringtheir time at a particular institution, in comparison to their entering expect-ations as remembered. To operationalise this hypothetical question, asurvey was handed out to students in selected second-semester classesat a regional university in central Canada. The selection of courses wasdone in consultation with the University’s Registrar with the objective ofacquiring students registered in virtually all programmes. The researchdesign targeted mainly second-year students, on the assumption that theyare still close enough to the experience of a new entrant to recall theirin-coming expectations, and yet have experienced the institutional envir-onment for more than one and half years. The survey initiative was afollow-up to two focus groups for students which were conducted by thePresident of the University. A parallel version of the same survey was alsodistributed to and received from 15 persons who form the senior manage-ment team in order to gather their thoughts on the actual experience ofstudents. This component of the research design will be discussed later inthis paper.

The survey instrument was constructed around three large categoriesof variables: (1) institutional environment; (2) social environment; and (3)academic environment. The institutional environment category included10 items, which inquired into the type of environment the institutionhas (e.g., Does the university have a relaxed environment?). The socialenvironment category had 7 items in it and focussed upon the type ofsocial environment the institution exhibits (e.g., Does it have a friendlyatmosphere?). The academic experience category also had 7 items. Thiscategory inquired about the type of academic experiences the studentsreceive (e.g., Do the students feel challenged?).

Semantic differential statements (judgment method) were developedfor each of the three categories of variables. The resulting instrumentwas pilot tested, and eventually administered in pre-selected second-yearcourses. The same statements were used for incoming expectations andactual experience; respondents were given a Likert scale of 0 to 5 to bestfit their answers, 0 being ‘Do not know’.

The survey was endorsed by general student body associations and wasadministered by a research-trained graduate student. Respondents wereinstructed to return the anonymous questionnaire through campus mail toany student organisation. In order to increase the response rate, use wasmade of posters, in-class reminders by professors, and second visits to


Figure 1. Institutional environment: Disparity between actual and expected.

classes where a low response rate was anticipated. In the end, a 43.3%response rate was obtained.

The mean response was calculated for each actual and expected elementwhereas percentages were used for the basic demographic variables. Thecorresponding standard deviation for each variable was also computed.In order to determine if there was any statistically significant deviation(p < 0.05) between the respondents’ perceptions of their actual and theirentering expectations, t-tests were performed on each image variable.

ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS

Although detailed data tables are available for each of the treatmentsoutlined under the Research Methodology section, a brief account of themain findings in the student survey will suffice to understand the typeof information that can be obtained and how that information can bevisually plotted for communication purposes. On each of the followingfigures, the horizontal axis represents the actual experience of the studentswhereas the moving or zigzag line shows the degree of disparity withtheir incoming expectations. Expectations are surpassed when points onthe moving line fall below the horizontal axis, and are unfulfilled whenpoints are located above the actual experience axis. As examples, Figure 1(Institutional Environment) indicates that the campus environment is more‘relaxed’ than expected but that students expected to know more about‘what is going on’ around them; Figure 2 (Social Environment) reveals


Figure 2. Social environment: Disparity between actual and expected.

Figure 3. Academic experience: Disparity between actual and expected.

that students’ expectations were surpassed on the ‘friendliness’ variablebut below the anticipated level on their opportunities for ‘student involve-ment’; and Figure 3 (Academic Experience) shows that they felt a littlemore ’challenged’ than they had anticipated but that they expected to havea ‘wider range of academic courses’ from which to choose. In a nutshell,Table I summarises the main highlights of the findings.


TABLE I

Where students’ expectations are exceeded, matched or unmet

Exceeding expectations Matching (or about) Below expectations

(p < 0.05) expectations (p < 0.05) (p < 0.05)

Relaxed atmosphere Self-disciplined environment Fostering new ideas

Secure environment Forging institutional pride

Feeling of independence Providing motivating

environment

Easy to find out ‘what is

going on’

Cultural diversification Access to academic advice Student involvement

Friendly/sociable

atmosphere

Tolerance/acceptance

Positive peer pressure

Access to faculty

Treatment by faculty Operational inconveniences Non-academic counselling

Optimum class size Bureaucracy (run-around) Course load

Scheduling problems Range of course offerings

Non-helpful admin. attitudes Easy access to tutoring

Non-supportive classroom Ample feedback

attitudes Timely feedback

Poor or indifferent teaching Up to date instructional

High academic expectations technology & equipment

Challenged to do one’s best Value for tuition

academically Satisfactory learning facilities

Senior management’s views

In order to compare the students’ expected and actual experiences withthose who set and represent the institutional agenda, and are in a positionto do something about it, this study also undertook to survey institutionalsenior officers on the same three sets of variables. After performing thesame data treatment as conducted in the students’ case, management viewswere checked against students’ actual experience to detect any statisticaldifferences. As a whole, no statistical significance was found on the insti-tutional and social environment dimensions, although students generally


held more positive views about the former than did senior management onthe former, and more negative about the latter. In the arena of academicexperience, senior management had a significantly more positive percep-tion than what students reported having experienced (actual) on the ‘hard’academic variables (e.g., wide range of academic courses available (p =0.001), easy access to tutoring (p = 0.032), optimum class sizes (p = 0.004),value for tuition paid (p = 0.0001)), whereas management’s perspect-ives were found to be significantly more negative than students’ actualexperience on ‘soft’ academic variables (e.g., bureaucracy/run-around (p =0.029), instructional equipment out of date (p = 0.0001)).

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Success and failure

One of the most striking findings of this research is that students hada markedly different experience from what they expected (Table 1) ina number of respects. Students’ expectations were exceeded with regardto a relaxed, secure, friendly, sociable, tolerant, and culturally diversifiedenvironment marked by positive peer pressure ‘to be a good citizen’. Classsize was clearly identified as a source of satisfaction. Students also feltthat their access to, and treatment by, faculty surpassed what had beenanticipated. The foregoing elements are mostly associated with generalcampus ambiance and faculty attitudes towards students. There was aclose match between expectations and actual experience on items suchas administrative problems and inconveniences, availability of academicadvice, and the incidence of poor or indifferent teaching.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were a number of areas in whichthe institution failed to meet the expectations of its students such as: (a)creating an environment – with institutional pride; that fosters new ideas;where the students are motivated; where the students are informed (‘whatis going on’); where students are drawn to extracurricular activities; wherestudents can readily obtain non-academic counselling; and (b) providing –value for the tuition that students pay; a wide range of academic courses;ample and timely feedback on learning progress; easy access to tutoring;satisfactory facilities for student learning; instructional technology andequipment that is up to date.


Implications

The preceding findings provide a wealth of ideas as to where this insti-tution should stay the course and where it should do some fine tuning orperform more drastic re-engineering. Although some of the student expect-ations may be unrealistic, or even contradictory at times (for example,students did not find that the environment was motivating enough, and yetthey indicated that they were challenged to do their best academically andthat academic performance expectations were as high as expected), thereis sufficient evidence of divergence between students’ expectations andactual experience to consider a number of corrective responses. The factthat senior management’s views were generally more positive than those ofstudents is an indication that more consultation with students should takeplace while making adjustments.

Despite the fact that this study places special emphasis on retention ofstudents as one important way to stabilise or increase revenues, one shouldnot conclude that retention of students is the only motivation to focus oninstitutional image. During two decades of financial and structural reform,universities mirrored the private sector in discourse regarding excellence,total quality management, re-engineering, business process, and global-isation – to name some of the most obvious – in order to identify corecompetencies and to create more flexibility and interconnectedness acrossorganisational units. There were two overriding and intertwined objectives:financial survival and responsiveness to stakeholders.

Organisations/universities are asking themselves simple but difficultquestions such as: How do we discover our identity? How do we enhanceour reputation? How do we change our identity? How do we broaden ourconsultation process to include our main stakeholders? What should wecommunicate about ourselves to positively influence our reputation? Howshould we react when we feel that our reputation has been threatened ordamaged? We know that the answers are more complex than having a logo,a name, a slogan, etc. (Hatch & Schultz 2000). Just a few years ago, itwas still possible to treat the multiplicity of audiences (students, parents,alumni, government, agencies, philanthropists, employees, industrial part-ners, environmentalists, human rights activists and others) more or lessseparately, with a different message sent to each. Today this is no longerpossible because each of these audiences overlaps and knowledge is highlymobile. There is an urgent need for coherence in projecting institutionalimage, in coordinating all aspects of communication and services, andin identifying with a credible set of values and type of behavior. Thoseinstitutions that can ‘stay close to the customer’ will survive and prosper,


as long as they understand that the student is not the only customer (duGay 2000).

It is obvious that some areas of incongruence are more important andcompelling than others because they are more at the core of the ‘Idea of aUniversity’ and risk having considerable negative ripple effects if left unat-tended; of course, those cues should be agenda priorities and be tackledwith more vigour than others. In this study, students seem to be unequi-vocal about the fact that elements related to the general intellectual climateof the campus and to an improved academic support system would go along way to elevate institutional pride and provide better value for money.As recently reported by Mount and Bélanger (2001), Canadian universitypresidents have asserted loudly and clearly that the single largest founda-tion block of a University is the fostering of new ideas and critical thinking(27.3%), ahead of disciplinary expertise (24.6%). These observations raisethe question of how an institution should direct its reputation-repair beha-viour. Dukerich and Carter (2000) suggest that institutional membersactively engage in a sense-making process to avoid blowing cues out ofproportion on the one hand or becoming totally oblivious to the negativefeedback on the other.

Previous studies conducted on corporate image development reveal thatit is useful to envision the exercise as a three-dimensional matrix weavingcriteria, stakeholders, and degrees of pressure exerted. Research under-taken by van Riel (1997, 2000) led to the application of four criteria whendeveloping a corporate image. Firstly, the story has to be realistic and relateto the ‘distinctive’ and ‘enduring’ characteristics of the institution as awhole. Secondly, the story must be relevant, that is, what is being said musthave value-added for the stakeholders. Thirdly, it must be presented andlived as a dynamic entity that changes as a result of continuous dialoguebetween internal and external stakeholders. And fourthly, the institutionalimage must be sustainable over time by striking the right balance betweenthe competing demands of all relevant stakeholders and the desires ofthe organisation itself. The second dimension of the matrix deals withthe stakeholders. Grunig and Hunt (1984) identified five categories: (1)enabling linkages (e.g., stockholders as facilitators of capital goods); (2)functional input linkages (e.g., employees as human capital); (3) functionaloutput linkages (e.g., customers buying the output of the institution); (4)normative linkages (e.g., other higher education providers and competi-tors); and (5) diffused linkages (e.g., pressure groups, impacting publicopinion). Prioritisation of those five stakeholder groups leads to the thirddimension of the matrix that represents the perceived ‘power, legitimacyand urgency’ attributed to specific groups (Mitchell et al. 1997). Power


refers to the perceived ability to impact critical decisions. Legitimacy isseen as the degree of justifiability of demands, and urgency is associatedwith the perceived time span necessary to move into a damage controlmode or to the final resolution of the problem. Senior management bearsheavy responsibilities to orchestrate this process.

CONCLUSION

The development of national budget systems of the last many years hasleft higher education institutions in many parts of the world scrambling foralternative financial sources. In that increasingly constricting fiscal envir-onment, the competition for recruiting and retaining the ‘right’ studentshas also increased on the basis that money to a large extent follows thestudent. Happy students are propagators of good news. Unhappy studentshave a propensity to drop out and to affect institutional image and financesnegatively. Making sure that close congruence exists between componentsof the institutional image and the actual experience of recruited studentsis a strategic managerial activity that will pay dividends. Although theimpetus for the completion of this study was grounded on a comparisonbetween students’ expectations and their actual experience, it is abundantlyclear that the development and repair of an institutional image must involvenot only students but the many other stakeholders. Still, involvement isnot enough. Success for an institution is never final in this sphere sincethe process of changing and repairing its organisational identity rests ona never ending dialogue, strategic and assiduous follow-up, and a delicatebalance between solving problems du jour and cultivating its longer termimage.

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Laurentian UniversitySudbury, OntarioCanada P3E 2C6E-mail: [email protected]

[email protected]@cyberbeach.net

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Institutional Image and Retention