Abstract
Marketing big organizations requires deep thinking and extraction of the essence in a nutshell fashion. It is an exercise in epiphany, that projects thinking and motivation as guides towards value-adding; what underlines the renowned ‘Yo shinai, Yo kangai’ Japanese philosophy, popularized by the Toyota Motor Company. The ‘good thinking, good product’ statement is a philosophy that is self-sustaining, needing the energy to drive the market, and sell its potentials to prospective clients. A new economic paradigm has emerged in the Nigerian university space as a result of recent proliferation of private universities. This development which encourages healthy rivalry and competitiveness calls for a compulsory revision and re-modelling of vision and mission statements for some universities, to project values and drive market orientation in an expansive client-based knowledge economy. In an economy harboring 43 Federal universities, 48 State universities, and 79 Private universities, the competition is getting stiffer by the day, and the contest between the traditional first generation universities and the avant-garde private universities is widening. The government-owned public universities have to catch up with the ideals of modernity and global competitiveness presented by the 21st century. A population of over 200 million people provides a vibrant market for university business. In this study, we shall probe the relevance of vision and mission as structuring principles in the Nigerian university space, and interrogate their perspectives on goals and objectives in a developing nation. We shall seek to know how realistic the statements are, given contextual challenges, and given that the statements in some instances, show obvious misunderstanding of basic meanings and expected functions of vision and mission statements. We shall posit that lack of proper setup of the structuring pattern is comparable to a derailed locomotive heading for oblivion. Drawing from a few number of concrete examples, we shall conclude by reiterating the importance of getting the foundation right to be able to revolutionize and reposition our universities. 
 
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Highlights
A university of the 21st century is expected to attain to certain laudable ideals and incontestable standards that set it apart from its precursors
In expounding the vision-mission principles and their ancillaries, and in showcasing how these were put to use by our universities in Nigeria, we have settled for a descriptive analysis to validate our statement of the problem that the principles have not been carefully crafted in a number of our universities, and that this has led to an overwhelming neglect and lack of interest on the part of the concerned stakeholders
We have probed the vision/mission materials from six universities in Nigeria and analyze them vis-à-vis the standard template, and have submitted that many universities need to revisit, rethink and rework their vision and mission statements with a view to re-aligning and repositioning their universities to fit into the 21st century modem
Summary
A university of the 21st century is expected to attain to certain laudable ideals and incontestable standards that set it apart from its precursors. The concepts of vision and mission have been a much misunderstood concepts, and have suffered misinterpretations and misrepresentations in our various universities. Visions and missions are pathways to enduring standards in universities all over the globe It is important for universities in Nigeria to give them the attention and craftsmanship they deserve, in order to expressly make their goals and objectives in the immediate and near future clear and sound. It is imperative to get the terminologies right and to give them contextual expressions and relevance in order to correctly position its aims and objectives It is jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring to note how big university organizations in Nigeria oftentimes steamroll these defining principles into a macaronic mismatch. The cascading roles of vision and mission are often collapsed and served to the public as a mélange, leaving prospective clients and staffers more confused
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