2024/07/31 by Silke Fürst, Daniel Vogler, Mike S. Schäfer +1 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Higher Education Governance and Development #Management and Organizational Studies #Public Relations and Crisis Communication
paper · pdf · doi:10.1515/commun-2023-0147
openalex publication_date 2024/07/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/22
Abstract In the past two decades, the public communication of universities has become more important and received increased scholarly attention. While many studies have focused on individual university communicators (micro level) or all such practitioners in one country (macro level), our study analyzes organizational differences. It is the first-ever study to typologize universities’ communication practices and structures at the organizational level across an entire country. Based on a survey of communication practitioners in the central communication offices at all universities in Switzerland and using hierarchical cluster analysis, we classify 37 universities into four types of communicating universities: minimalists, well-resourced competitors, specialized strategists, and professional all-rounders. Those types are further characterized on the basis of official statistics. The analysis shows that the four types of universities differ considerably in their communication patterns and organizational characteristics and that the amount of resources available for communication is only loosely coupled with professional and strategic communication practices.