Stakeholder Research
Benefits
Since reputation is based on what others think of us, it is essential to undertake stakeholder research to have a clear understanding of our reputational strengths and weaknesses. The more competitive HE environment we all live with now means that universities need to gauge feedback into pricing, brand, strategy and direction. Stakeholder research is also important for market insight and product development, such as new courses, ventures, off-shore campuses and so on.
At The Knowledge Partnership, we have a longstanding expertise in interviewing stakeholders relevant to higher education – business leaders, VCs, alumni, staff, students, parents, teachers, media, government, agency bodies. Many of our clients come back to us for two year benchmarking to explore how views change over time, and also to present vision ideas to stakeholders. Thus interviews can be partly undertaken to leave information as much as to seek information.
Our in-depth knowledge of higher education allows us to conduct these interviews in an informed way to reflect well on organizational positioning. Many stakeholders are keen to re-engage or engage further with the university as a result of our interviews.
Methods
Face to face interviews offer a chance for detailed and in-depth conversations, whilst telephone conversations allow for wider and faster feedback in a personal and confidential style. Focus groups are best for groups of students or staff where similar types of people can be brought together and personal confidentiality is less important. These are best kept to 6 or 8 people, and are useful for trialling views of new products or courses.
For those wanting a much larger sample, online surveys can be arranged, which can distributed by emails to either your known contacts, or contacts sourced by us. This can provide you with answers to specific questions, but can also be used to ask open questions.
Feedback, benchmarking and results
Whichever type of stakeholder research you are interested in, we will create questions with our clients to explore both closed and open questions and present the answers in the format you find most useful. Presentations to senior management teams are often the preferred solution for stakeholder research, but we can also provide you with a short PowerPoint, or a full report with data charts and selected quotations throughout. Benchmarking techniques using our ADMIRE framework also allows you to compare your own results with those of other universities when it comes to facets of leadership or reputation. Using the Net Promote Score will also help you understand whether the majority of your stakeholders are promoters, or detractors, or passive.
We also run workshops to disseminate results with staff and allow for a more interactive way of co-creating plans to take the university forward, based on robust stakeholder evidence.