Relationship between legitimacy, reputation and image in the Spanish public university

Resumo

Universities and higher education institutions operate in a highly competitive markets, where attracting resources has become a complicated task. Globalization has expanded the pressure and the competition to international levels since universities need to compete globally to attract talented students, prestigious professors and employees. Furthermore, despite the existing criticism, stakeholder´s and society expectations regarding the scores hold by Universities in quality and employability rankings are increasing, augmenting the pressure in the sector. Universities nowadays are no longer untouchable entities that could assume that society would trust them without being questioned. Stakeholders and society are skeptical on universities focusing their efforts on research instead of teaching, issues regarding how these institutions handle money or the lack of efforts to serve the public in the correct manner. In this attempt to improve their position in the market, universities have understood that the correct management of intangible assets such as image, legitimacy and reputation is a key element for attracting and retaining stakeholders such as students, professors or economic resources. Image, legitimacy and reputation are considered as relevant variables for organization´s survival and success. Scholars have shown in their research that legitimacy increase organizations´ access to crucial resources and that stakeholders are willing to engage with legitimated institutions. Moreover, holding a positive image increases the loyalty and satisfaction level of stakeholders as well as the overall perception of the organization. Well-reputed organizations and those with a positive image will have a competitive advantage in the market and a higher probability of survival. Due to their relevance, numerous scholars have developed research on these constructs, however, there is still lack of clarity between the differences and relationships between these intangible assets and further research on this matter remains important. The aim of this research is to analyze the existing relationship between image, legitimacy and reputation and to compare students´ versus professors´ perceptions since it has been stated in the literature the importance of understanding that each stakeholder group can have different perceptions and experiences towards the same organization. To meet this objective, a review on the literature on image, legitimacy and reputation as well as on their differences and relationships will be carried out in the higher education sector, followed by an empirical analysis using Spanish Public Universities as sample, where surveys will be developed to gather information from the two stakeholder groups under consideration Finally, the main conclusions, limitations and future research lines will be presented.