Session Information
26 SES 06 B, Principals Performance, Legal Standards and Brand Management
Paper Session
Contribution
Description
It is acknowledged that a key aspect of school leaders is to get the ‘culture’ right. Culture is what people feel and experience from the inside the organisation. But today the demands go beyond the internal to the external. Brand is what people feel and experience about an institution from the outside. Culture and brand are two sides of the same coin. To be successful in today’s competitive educational environment, the principal’s challenge is not only to develop the culture but build the brand.
The Research Question: How can school leaders build the reputation and image of their school through brand management and also shape school culture so they are aligned and lead to school success.
Objectives:
Explain why brand management is important in today’s educational environment
Explore how brand management can enhance a school’s image, reputation, resources and enrolments?
Explore the synergistic relationship between culture and brand
Identify in what ways school principals can build brand equity
Framework
The paper proposes that in addition to the importance of the principal’s role in shaping the culture of the school, they also have an equally important role of building the school’s brand in order to enhance the school’s reputation and image. The importance of organisational culture is without question and the principal’s role in helping to shape it is critical.
The authors argue that culture and brand are two sides of the one coin. There are numerous definitions of culture, but more commonly it is defined as a system of shared meanings that include a pattern of beliefs, symbols, rituals, myths and practices that have evolved over time (Deal and Kennedy 1982; Schein 1984/5). It is often summed up as ‘the way things are done around here.’ Because it involves beliefs and assumptions that we apply at work as part of the social processes, culture is sometimes regarded as being intangible; however, it is made more concrete when we look at the behaviours of people, the artefacts, symbols and rituals that take place in a school. Culture is largely internal to the organisation because it involves the feelings, beliefs, assumptions and perceptions people within the organisation. Brand is similar to culture is that it is also largely intangible. A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the products or services of one organisation or group of organisations and to differentiate them from those of competitors. . ‘Branding is an attempt to strategically "personify" products and to encapsulate a balance between different economic values: quality, utility, symbolic, and cultural worth’ (Power & Haug, 2008).
In our previous research we explored market orientation and found that schools with a strong market orientation were likely to be more successful. Market orientation is defined as a philosophy that put the needs of students and their families at the centre of the organisation and attempts to see how the school perceives products and services from the their point of view ( Drysdale & Gurr 2003). In this paper we are suggesting that market orientation is perhaps a reflection of organisation culture and brand.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Deal, T. E. and Kennedy, A.A. (1982) Corporate Culture: The Rites and Rituals of Cororate Life, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Drysdale, L. (1995). The evolution of marketing: implications for schools. Hot Topics: Australian Council of Educational Administration, 2, 1-4. Drysdale, L. 2000, ‘Promotion Orientation Versus Market Orientation’, Hot Topics Australian Council for Educational Administration, No. 2, pp. 1-2. Drysdale, L. (2001) Towards a Model of Market Centred Leadership, Leading and Managing Vol. 7 No.1 Page 76-89. Drysdale, L. (2001) Getting the Most Out of Marketing for Schools, ACEA Monograph, No. 29. October. Drysdale, L. (2002). A Study of Marketing and Market Orientation in Selected Victorian Schools of the Future. Unpublished PhD Thesis, The University of Melbourne. Drysdale, L. & Gurr, D. (2003). Market Centred Leadership, International Journal of Learning, 10, 2619-2630. Keller, K.L (2008) Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity. Pearson Educational International, New Jersey. Kotler, P., Brown, L., Burton, S., and Armstrong, G. (2010) Marketing 8e Pearson Australia Frenchs Forest NSW. McKay, M.M. (2001) Application of brand equity measures in service markets, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 3 2001, pp. 210-221. Peterson, K. D. and Deal, T. E. (1998) How Leaders Influence the Culture of Schools Educational Leadership, Vol 56. No 1 pp 28-30. Power, D and Hauge, A. (2008) No Man's Brand--Brands, Institutions, and Fashion Growth and Change Volume 39 Issue 1 Page 123-143. Schein, E. H. (1984) Coming to a New Awareness of Organisational Culture, Sloan Management Review, Winter, Page 7 Schein, E. H. (1985) Organisational Culture and Leadership, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Thomas, S and Kohli, C (2009) A Brand is Forever! The framework for revitalizing declining and dead brands, Business Horizons (2009) 52, 377—386. Trout, J and Rivkin, S. (2010) Repositioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis McGraw Hill, New York. Ulrich, D. and Smallwood, N. (2007) Building a Leadership Brand, Harvard Business Review, July-August pp 93-100.
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