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Marketing of higher education institutions: Research themes and their shifting relevance over time Cover

Marketing of higher education institutions: Research themes and their shifting relevance over time

Marketing of Scientific and Research Organizations
Volume 55 (2025): Issue 1 (March 2025)
By:  and    
Open Access
|Mar 2025
Figures & tables

Figures & Tables

Figure 1.

Stages reflecting the literature search and selection process (PRISMA protocol).

Source: based on Moher et al. (2009).

Table 1.

Basic information on the generated set of documents.

DescriptionResultsDescriptionResults
MAIN INFORMATION ABOUT DATADOCUMENT CONTENTS
Timespan1999–2024Keywords Plus (ID)766
Sources (Journals, Books, etc.)207Author’s Keywords (DE)1361
Documents494AUTHORS
Annual Growth Rate %10.8Authors1134
Document Average Age7Authors of single-authored docs78
Average citations per doc16.36AUTHORS COLLABORATION
References20969Single-authored docs87
Co-Authors per Doc2.69
International co-authorships %27.33

[i] Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Table 2.

Basic information on the generated set of documents and the identified sub-periods.

Description1st period2nd period3rd period4th period
Timespan1999–20092010–20142015–20192020–2024
Sources (journals, book, etc)155210480
Documents4299177176
Average Growth Rate (%)17.469.7820.9−6.49
Average citations per doc36.6423.4217.386.523
References18134218785410160
Keywords Plus (ID)85201389455
Author’s Keywords123350573627
Authors91208440508

[i] Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Figure 2.

Number of publications on marketing research in higher education activities in the WoS database over the period 1991–2024. Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Table 3.

Relevance of higher education marketing journals.

SourceArticlesh_indexg_indexm_indexTCPY_startBradford’s Law Zone
1Journal of Marketing for Higher Education13230471.5028192005Zone 1 (core)
2International Journal of Educational Management3415230.755962005Zone 1 (core)
3Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics1111110.583922006Zone 2
4Journal of Business Research1111110.618442007Zone 2
5Journal of Marketing Management5550.361512011Zone 2

[i] Description: h-index – Hirsch index, g-index – Egghe’s g-index, m-index – m-index, NP = total number of publications; TC = total number of citations, PY_start – first identified publication from a given field in a given journal.

Table 4.

The 5 most influential authors of publications on marketing in higher education.

Authorh_indexg_indexm_indexTCNPPY_start
1Chris Chapleo560,3611462011
2Tamer Elsharnouby560,5016462015
3Emmanuel Mogaji450,446052016
4Norazlyn Kamal Basha330,303432015
5Riza Casidy330,257432013

[i] Description: h-index – Hirsch index, g-index – Egghe’s g-index, m-index – m-index, NP = total number of publications; TC = total number of citations, PY_start – first identified publication from a given author’s field.

[ii] Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Table 5.

The 10 most cited publications in the research area analysed.

PublicationLocal CitationsGlobal Citations
1Hemsley-Brown, J., & Goonawardana, S. (2007). Brand harmonization in the international higher education market.42158
2Bennett, R., & Ali-Choudhury, R. (2009). Prospective students’ perceptions of university brands: An empirical study3191
3Helgesen, Ø. (2008). Marketing for higher education: A relationship marketing approach25103
4Lowrie, A. (2007). Branding higher education: Equivalence and difference in developing identity2476
5Mourad, M., Ennew, C., & Kortam, W. (2011). Brand equity in higher education2388
6Constantinides, E., & Zinck Stagno, M. C. (2011). Potential of the social media as instruments of higher education marketing: A segmentation study21121
7Clark, M., Fine, M. B., & Scheuer, C. L. (2017). Relationship quality in higher education marketing: the role of social media engagement2183
8Paswan, A. K., & Ganesh, G. (2009). Higher education institutions: Satisfaction and loyalty among international students2077
9Rauschnabel, P. A., Krey, N., Babin, B. J., & Ivens, B. S. (2016). Brand management in higher education: the university brand personality scale20117
10Peruta, A., & Shields, A. B. (2017). Social media in higher education: understanding how colleges and universities use Facebook20110

[i] Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Table 6.

The 15 most frequently occurring author keywords.

KeywordsFrequency of occurrenceKeywordsFrequency of occurrence
1brand969value25
2student satisfaction7510marketing communication17
3image5011market orientation16
4social media4412marketing strategy16
5service quality3913internal marketing14
6student loyalty2914trust12
7relationship marketing2615WoM (word of mouth)11
8digital marketing25

[i] Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Table 7.

Evolution of research topics on marketing in higher education.

1999–20092010–20142015–20192020–2024
Dominant research themes identified

  • relationship marketing,

  • brand,

  • student satisfaction,

  • marketing strategy,

  • market segmentation

  • student satisfaction,

  • services marketing,

  • social media,

  • digital marketing,

  • marketing strategy,

  • market orientation,

  • market orientation,

  • university social responsibility,

  • student satisfaction,

  • social media,

  • brand

  • market orientation,

  • university social responsibility,

  • student satisfaction,

  • social media,

  • brand

[i] Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Figure 3.

Thematic map for the period 1999–2009. Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Figure 4.

Thematic map for the period 2010–2014. Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Figure 5.

Thematic map for the period 2015–2019. Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Figure 6.

Thematic map for the period 2020–2024. Source: based on bibliometric analysis in Biblioshiny.

Table 8.

Summary of Citation Analysis and Research Topics Identified in the Field of “Marketing in Higher Education”.

Basic DataCitation AnalysisIdentification of Research Topics by Period

  • First publication in the generated dataset: 1999

  • Identified set of publications: 494 items in WoS

  • Average number of authors per document: 2.69

  • Highest number of new publications in this research area recorded in 2022: 55 publications

  • Average document age (in years): 7

  • Period 1999–2009: 15 different publication venues, 42 publications, 91 authors, 1813 bibliographic entries

  • Period 2010–2014: 52 different publication venues, 99 publications, 208 authors, 4218 bibliographic entries

  • Period 2015–2019: 104 different publication venues, 177 publications, 440 authors, 7854 bibliographic entries

  • Period 2020–2024: 80 different publication venues, 176 publications, 508 authors, 10160 bibliographic entries

  • Average number of citations per document: 16.36

  • Authors with the highest number of publications in this field: Chris Chapleo (6 publications) and Tamer Elsharnouby (6 publications)

  • Authors with the greatest influence on other publications: Chris Chapleo (h-index=5) and Tamer Elsharnouby (h-index=5)

  • Journal with the highest number of publications in this field: Journal of Marketing for Higher Education (132 publications)

  • The journal with the greatest impact in this area: Journal of Marketing for Higher Education (h-index=30)

  • The most relevant journals in each research area (zone 1, Bradford’s law): Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, International Journal of Educational Management.

  • Highest average number of citations per year: 4.02 (2007)

  • Local citations. Most cited work: Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana (2007).

  • The three most frequently occurring keywords in publications from 1999–2024 are: brand (96 times), student satisfaction (75 times), and image (50 times).

  • Years 1999–2009: relationship marketing, brand, student satisfaction, marketing strategy, market segmentation.

  • Years 2010–2014: student satisfaction, services marketing, social media, digital marketing, marketing strategy, market orientation.

  • Years 2015–2019: market orientation, university social responsibility, student satisfaction, social media, brand.

  • Years 2020–2024: student satisfaction, brand, market orientation, international students, relationship marketing.

[i] Source: based on bibliometric analysis using the Biblioshiny software.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/minib-2025-0005 | Journal eISSN: 2353-8414 | Journal ISSN: 2353-8503
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Language: English
Page range: 69 - 89
Submitted on: Nov 5, 2024
Accepted on: Mar 4, 2025
Published on: Mar 28, 2025
Published by: ŁUKASIEWICZ RESEARCH NETWORK – INSTITUTE OF AVIATION
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
marketing,
higher education,
literature mapping,
bibliometric analysis
JEL:
I23,
M31
Related subjects:
Business and economics,
Business management,
Marketing, sales, customer relations,
Management, organization, corporate governance,
Business development, change management, cooperation,
Key competences in scholarly research

© 2025 Krzysztof Błoński, Jolanta Witek, published by ŁUKASIEWICZ RESEARCH NETWORK – INSTITUTE OF AVIATION
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

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