Marketing in wissenschaftlichen Weiterbildungsangeboten an Hochschulen – Bedeutung von Kooperationen und Vertrieb

Scientific continuing education at universities is confronted with an expanding continuing education market that is characterised by a high degree of diversification and competition. As a result, universities are required to raise their profile, to make themselves known and to become competitive. This requires not only a shift between different functional systems, but also a high degree of demand, practice and service orientation. This is where the cumulative dissertation thesis comes in and is dedicated to a market-related perspective to scientific continuing education. The research interest focuses on marketing, i.e. the consistent orientation of a company to the needs of the market. With regard to highly complex organisations such as universities, a closer look at the (structural) realisation of marketing in the organisation itself turns out to be extremely insightful for an overview. The research question is pursued, which potentials marketing holds for scientific continuing education and which adaptation needs arise. In the process, (potential) areas of conflicts and challenges are broken down – especially taking into account the implementation possibilities in universities and the inherent institutional-organisational dilemmas. The focus is on cooperation and distribution, which emerged as central success factors of marketing in project-related analyses: On the one hand, they showed up as recurring cross-sectional dimensions, e.g. in the areas of profiling, target group analysis or service orientation. On the other hand, they represented an always ongoing practice in the process of preparing and implementing or managing scientific continuing education. The cumulative dissertation thesis not only serves to present and bundle the publications, but also represents an independent analytical service to answer the research question. The aim is an integrated interpretative concept of marketing in scientific continuing education that summarises the implications and can serve as a basis for further research and development work.