Abstract:

No one is surprised anymore by the great challenge that universities face today due to the extremely competitive environment in which they carry out their activity. That challenge is to approach not only the students but also other stakeholders [1, 2] that facilitate the co-creation of value. One of those stakeholders that have acquired today a key importance are the managers of companies.

Nevertheless, the development of competitive advantages through the co-creation of value between companies and universities will only be possible when universities incorporate relational marketing into their strategies [3]. For this, the marketing literature proposes to start by analysing what is the state of the art and what are all the possible values that can be obtained from the establishment of these relationships.

This work, made from the analysis of an exhaustive review of the literature, presents a list of all the co-created values identified, not only clearly identifying who is the beneficiary -university or company- but also classifying them according to the value category developed: R+D and Knowledge, Human Resources, Financial Resources, etc.

From this compilation each university should analyze internally if it takes advantage of the full potential of its relations with companies. Moreover, knowing the values co-created for companies, universities will have an excellent marketing argument when requesting their collaboration, by showing them all the benefits they can obtain from the relationship.

References:
[1] M. Frasquet, H. Calderón, & A. Cervera, "University–industry collaboration from a relationship marketing perspective: An empirical analysis in a Spanish University." Higher Education, vol. 64, no 1, pp. 85-98, 2012.
[2] J. Llonch, C. Casablancas-Segura, & M.C. Alarcón-del-Amo, “Stakeholder orientation in public universities: A conceptual discussion and a scale development”, Spanish journal of marketing-ESIC, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 41-57, 2016
[3] M.M. Navarro, M.P. Iglesias, & P.R. Torres, “Un modelo de relaciones empresa-universidad.”, Revista europea de dirección y economía de la empresa, vol. 17, no 1, pp. 39-56, 2008.

Keywords:

Higher education, university-business relationships, value co-creation.