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Competition in UKHigher Education: Competitive Advantage in the Research Assessment Exercise and Porter's Diamond Model
Author(s) -
Curran Paul J.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
higher education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.976
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1468-2273
pISSN - 0951-5224
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2273.00167
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , rivalry , diamond model , competitive advantage , institution , curran , marketing , institutional research , higher education , industrial organization , public relations , economics , business , sociology , political science , economic growth , microeconomics , social science , ecology , botany , law , china , biology
The UK public sector has been exposed to competition as a means of enhancing its performance. HE institutions now compete for resources on the basis of research. In this competitive environment the crucial question is not why one HE institution is more successful than another at research but why some institutions are home to a large number of departments that are successful. The answer lies in exploring what gives competitive advantage at the level of the department, discipline and nation . Porter' three layer ‘diamond’ model of competitive advantage is proposed as a framework for this exploration. This identified four major components: factor conditions (research orientation and accumulated wealth of institution); demand conditions (demand by academy for departmental research as measured by ability to secure external income/research students); related and supporting departments (research strength of institution and presence of a relevant cluster of research‐strong departments) and departmental strategy, structure and rivalry (ability to focus departmental attention on the successful training of research students and publication in refereed journals). In a linked paper this model provided a framework to evaluate research performance in the discipline of geography (Curran, 2001).