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We examine variation in high school and college outcomes across New York City public high schools. Using data on 80,000 students who entered high school in 1998 and following them into the City University of New York, we investigate whether schools that produce successful high school students also produce successful college students. We also explore differences in performance across sex, race, and immigration, and we briefly explore selection issues. Specifically, we estimate student-level regressions with school fixed effects, controlling for student characteristics, to identify better and worse performing schools based on state mandated exams, graduation, and college performance.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to develop a conceptual framework that provides insight and aids understanding of the complex array of relationships schools have with individuals, organizations, and other entities.

Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual framework is drawn from the relationship marketing (RM) literature and applied to a school context in the United Kingdom. In doing so, it provides a simplified representation of the environment in which schools operate and a valuable classification structure for the many different relationships a school has. This framework will be of benefit to both academics and practitioners.

Findings – The authors find that the relationships schools have can be classified within the conceptual framework. The framework aids understanding of the different relationships and provides insights into how these relationships can be developed and where value can be added. Application of the framework also highlights the complex nature of the relationships schools can have with others and the need to manage those relationships well.

Research implications – The framework developed in this chapter is conceptual and needs to be tested empirically.

Originality/value – This chapter responds to the call from Oplatka and Hemsley-Brown (2004) to provide further research into the area of RM in the context of schools. It adds value by drawing together various aspects of RM, providing an analysis of their relevance to educational services marketing and identifying and applying a conceptual framework which classifies the relationships schools have with others. This chapter provides important insights for those within schools who are responsible for the management of relationships with their organization and for others seeking to foster greater engagement with schools.

Advocates of market-based reforms in the public sector argue that competition between providers drives up performance. But in the context of schooling, the concern is that any improvements in efficiency may come at the cost of increased stratification of schools along lines of pupil ability and attainments. In this chapter, we discuss our empirical work on competition and parental choice in English primary schools and present a methodology for identifying competition effects that exploits discontinuities in market access close to education district boundaries.

Companies in all industries are searching for new sources of competitive advantage since the competition in their marketplace is becoming increasingly intensive. The resource-based view of the firm explains the sources of sustainable competitive advantages. From a resource-based view perspective, relational based assets (i.e., the assets resulting from firm contacts in the marketplace) enable competitive advantage. The relational based assets examined in this work are brand image and corporate reputation, as components of brand equity, and customer value. This paper explores how they create value. Despite the relatively large amount of literature describing the benefits of firms in having strong brand equity and delivering customer value, no research validated the linkage of brand equity components, brand image, and corporate reputation, simultaneously in the customer value–customer loyalty chain. This work presents a model of testing these relationships in consumer goods, in a business-to-business context. The results demonstrate the differential roles of brand image and corporate reputation on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. Brand image influences the perception of quality of the products and the additional services, whereas corporate reputation actions beyond brand image, estimating the customer value and customer loyalty. The effects of corporate reputation are also validated on different samples. The results demonstrate the importance of managing brand equity facets, brand image, and corporate reputation since their differential impacts on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that companies should not limit to invest only in brand image. Maintaining and enhancing corporate reputation can have a stronger impact on customer value and customer loyalty, and can create differential competitive advantage.

The existing state of K-12 public education in the United States is perceived as unacceptable by a large number and a wide variety of critics. How to improve upon this state is the subject of much disagreement. The public discussion is heated, and even the academic debate is often sharp. One common thread of argument stresses the need to increase accountability as a strategy for improving the quality of public schools. There are two broad classes of mechanisms for increasing accountability. If the current outcomes are too low, then setting acceptable performance standards is one approach to generating quality improvements. The task becomes one of defining appropriate accountability standards and then establishing a system of incentives to implement those standards. Alternatively, the low current performance may reflect weak productivity incentives traceable to the limited competition, which many school operators face. The suggested remedy is a dose of increased choice either increased public sector offerings, such as charter schools, or increased private sector choice via voucher-type programs.

Most social scientists believe that schools serving the disadvantaged provide considerably poorer learning environments than schools serving advantaged students. As a result, schools are thought to be an important source of social problems like inequality. However, an important subset of research employing seasonal comparisons (observing how achievement gaps change when school is in versus out) disputes this position. These studies note that socioeconomic-based gaps in skills grow faster when school is out versus in, suggesting that achievement gaps would be larger if not for schools. I discuss the advantages of seasonal comparison studies and how they provide a more contextual perspective for understanding several important questions, such as: (1) What is the distribution of school quality? (2) How does inequality outside of school condition the way schools matter? and (3) Which policies, school or non-school, most effectively reduce achievement gaps? I conclude that our understanding of how schools influence inequality would be improved by employing the more contextual perspective offered by seasonal comparisons. Seasonal comparison studies have not played a meaningful role in public discussions and so the public lacks a proper understanding of the extent to which social context shapes achievement gaps. This is unfortunate because we continue to try and address achievement gaps primarily through school reform when the real source of the problem lies in the inequalities outside of schools.

During the last two decades, education systems worldwide have been working under an increasing need to adapt to a rapidly changing postindustrial external environment with social, technological, economic, and political transformations. The unprecedented growth, complexity, and competitiveness of the global economy with its attendant sociopolitical and technological developments have been creating relentless and cumulative pressures on education systems to respond to the changing environment. Today, educational institutions from primary schools to universities are being forced to compete and excel in the international arena, and are thus expected to go far beyond simply providing pure knowledge and skills as before. Increasingly, more institutions in primary and secondary education are embracing innovative practices from the global business world and dedicating growing attention to strategic and marketing aspects of educational management.

The European Commission has defined innovation as the “building block of the future competitive workplace during the 21st century” and the strategy of educational institutions around the world is being affected to a large extent by this statement. This chapter focuses on the identification and definition of the future challenges in schools’ governance, and presents a novel logical framework for the arena of educational marketing. Special attention is given to innovation as a key driver for further development of educational institutions and its possible impact on marketing efforts in educational institutions. These aspects, previously overlooked by research literature, are discussed in the present chapter, adding a new dimension to the understanding of strategic facets in the educational marketing arena.