An examination of integrated marketing as a means of achieving responsiveness in an institution of higher education in Israel : a case study

Integrated marketing has become relatively widespread in higher education. Nevertheless, only few formal studies have been carried out on integrated marketing in institutions of higher education. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine integrated marketing as a means of achieving responsiveness in an institution of higher education in Israel during a period of change. This change resulted from the creation of several one-year programs, intended increase student enrollment, which were planned to give students a professional diploma with accreditation in academic courses. However, to implement these programs created a need for marketing to permeate all areas of the organization, i.e. for integrated marketing. This enabled research on integrated marketing to be undertaken as a case study using the research tools of interviews, questionnaires and documents. The main findings were that the institution had a low level of responsiveness, the extent of integrated marketing was low with almost no commitment by senior management, systematic market research was not carried out, no strategic orientation took place, implementation failed, and even the university's performance was low with a decrease in enrolment and dissatisfied students. However, these failures were not negative for this thesis, since they were instrumental in developing a theoretical model for the implementation of integrated marketing. This model, built as a chronological clock, emphasizes that implementing integrated marketing is a circular ongoing process, since marketing is a dynamic activity. It puts a committed top management at its centre because without top managers' true commitment to integrated marketing throughout its implementation, integrated marketing will ultimately fail. The model also suggests that senior management must be committed to continuous research, including not only external market research such as potential students' needs, but also internal research such as satisfaction of current enrolled students and employees' understandings of the importance of integrated marketing.