Abstract:

This study uses a qualitative research approach to explore how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) engage with external stakeholders. Engagement interactions by HEIs have become more prevalent in recent years and are identified as engagement for graduate formation, workforce development, research and innovation, social enhancement and market advancement. Such engagements occurring with a wide variety of stakeholders. Stakeholders are described as any group or individual who can affect or are affected by the achievement of an organisation. HEIs are now engaging with a wide set of external stakeholders in a variety of interactions relating to graduate formation, workforce development, research and innovation, social enhancement, and market advancement. However, HEIs cannot attend to all claims on their organisation from external stakeholders. Stakeholder salience based on three attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency is significant in determining stakeholder prioritisation.

Findings from the study highlight the variety of external stakeholders with whom the case HEI engages in many different ways. They confirm that combined stakeholder and institutional influences have determined the types of HEI engagement interactions in HEIs. The results verify both macro influences including institutional influences such as policy, culture and norms, and micro influences including stakeholder proximate needs such as local employer and prospective students concerns. Institutions can mediate stakeholder pressures by legitimating a stakeholder’s claim. Conversely, stakeholders can mediate the isomorphic institutional effects proposed by new institutional sociology (NIS), by acting as buffers or amplifiers of institutional pressures. Hence, the findings show that institutional and stakeholder pressures have influenced external stakeholder engagement.

Keywords:

External stakeholders, Engagement.