Abstract:

More and more higher education institutions (HEI), from the public and private spheres, are implementing social responsibility strategies, aiming at reducing the negative impacts of their daily activities on the lives of their stakeholders and ultimately on society and the environment.

Studies on Social Responsibility have provided useful tools to profit-seeking companies dealing with these challenges, but the literature is still scarce regarding not-for-profit (NFP) corporate entities such as educational establishments (schools, colleges and universities). Moreover, despite existing knowledge on the importance and implementation of social responsibility in HEIs, there are few empirical studies that investigate the challenges faced by this institutions to address gaps of perceptions and expectations of different groups of stakeholders, namely, the so-called group of internal stakeholders such as students, staff and faculty members (Sánchez, Bolivar & López-Hernández, 2013).

Hence, aiming at contributing to the discussion of social responsibility in HEIs, this paper reports the findings of an empirical study on perceptions and expectations of internal stakeholders towards social responsibility, regarding two gaps:
i) The gap between practices implemented in the context of HEI social responsibility and internal stakeholders’ expectations on which practices they believe that should be implemented in their institutions.
ii) The gap between practices implemented in the context of HEI social responsibility and internal stakeholders’ perceptions’ on which of these SR practices are in place in their institutions.

Based on the work put forward by Valleys (2008), Vallaeys (2009), Sánchez-Hernández, Mainardes (2016) and further developed by the Portuguese Observatory of Social Responsibility in HEI (ORSIES) (2018), four dimensions of analysis will be used to analyse these gaps:
a) socially responsible campus,
b) students’ professional training and alumni involvement,
c) social responsible production and diffusion of knowledge and
d) social participation in the community.

A total of 700 participants (600 students from undergraduate and master courses, 50 teaching staff and 50 faculty members) were surveyed from two different Portuguese HEIs: a centenary public HEI - social service courses and a young (35 years) private HEI teaching marketing management courses.

The contributions of this study are threefold: firstly, it contributes to the literature by empirically testing perception and expectations gaps regarding HEIs’ social responsibility practices from the perspectives of three different internal stakeholders in two different HEI settings; secondly it discusses mechanisms that allow greater participation of internal stakeholders in the definition of social responsibility strategies; thirdly, it discusses the implications for the design of HEIs’ communication and marketing strategies that might bridge the gaps between what the HEIs provide in terms of SR practices versus what internal stakeholders perceive and expect as such.

Keywords:

Higher Education Institutions, Social Responsibility, Internal Stakeholders, Practices, Expectations and Perception gaps, Communication and Marketing, Participation.