Abstract
Market of educational services in the current Russian economic conditions is a complex of a huge variety of educational institutions. Market of educational services is already experiencing a significant influence of the demographic situation in Russia. This means that higher education institutions are forced to fight in a tough competition for high school students. Increased competition in the educational market forces universities to find new methods of non-price competition in attraction of potential students and throughout own educational and economic activities. Commercialization of education places universities in a single plane with commercial companies who study a positive perception of the image and reputation as a competitive advantage, which is quite acceptable for use in strategic and current activities of higher education institutions to ensure the competitiveness of educational services and educational institution in whole. Nevertheless, due to lack of evidence-based proposals in this area there is a need for scientific research in terms of justification of organizational and methodological aspects of image use as a factor in the competitiveness of the higher education institution. Theoretically and practically there are different methods and ways of evaluating the company's image. The article provides a comparative assessment of the existing valuation methods of corporate image and the author’s method of estimating the image of higher education institutions based on the key influencing factors. The method has been tested on the Vyatka State Agricultural Academy (Russia). The results also indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the institution, highlights ways of improving and adjusts the efforts for image improvement.
Highlights
Public relations, sociology and psychology actively discuss the theme of image
According to conclusions we suggest the author’s definition of the university’s image, which in our opinion is more comprehensive and uniting different approaches
Before adjustments of university’s image, it is necessary to identify the current situation of issue, i.e., to conduct marketing research
Summary
Public relations, sociology and psychology actively discuss the theme of image. The meaning of image as a phenomenon studied by Grunig J., Drucker P., Kotler Ph., Kono T. and other foreign scientists (Boulding, 1956), Table 1. The issues of image formation are considered in the works of Russian authors: Tomilova M.V., Sinyaeva N.M., Havanova A.V., Sukhinov O. Yu. Techniques and methods of effective image management described by T. Waterman in their book “In Search of excellence”
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