Towards Entrepreneurial Universities through Marketing strategy and entrepreneurship: A comparative study of Selected Public and Private Universities in Kenya

Abstract

This study sought to make a comparative assessment of public and private universities in Kenya, in order to understand their orientation towards entrepreneurship and marketing practices used, as well as assessing whether entrepreneurial orientation has influence on marketing practices. The population of the study was 125 heads of department and program coordinators selected from 7 public and 5 private universities. A total of  92 out of the targeted 125 respondents responded from  the nine  universities that agreed to participate, giving a response rate of 73.6%.. A Semi structured questionnaires was administered by trained data collection assistants.  Pilot study was done to ensure validity and reliability of the data collection instrument. Analysis was included descriptive statistics, particularly means and standard deviation. Testing of paired sample means was done to test the 1^st two hypotheses, while regression and correlation were done to test the third hypothesis. The study found that Private Universities were doing better than Public Universities especially in the area of looking for and exploiting new opportunities that generate money for the University. Private universities had a mean score of 3.8621 (SD 1.17) compared to a mean score of 3.1639 (SD 1.04) for public Universities for their ability to look for and exploit new opportunities that generate money for the University. Similarly, Private universities had a mean score of 3.24 (SD 1.32) for taking cautious posture in order to minimize the possibility of making wrong decisions, as compared to 2.98 (SD 1. 13) for public Universities.  Private universities were found to be doing better than public universities in most of the marketing indicators tested.  Private universities had a stronger believe in customer sovereignty (Mean 4.31, SD.76) than Public Universities (Mean 3.7, SD 0.86)  Further, Private universities had better established marketing department that handles marketing programs (Mean 4.1, SD 1.04) than Public Universities ((Mean 3.12, SD 1.3). However, public Universities were better  (Mean 4.1, SD.71) (in having systems for curriculum review that match industry needs than private universities (Mean 3.79, SD 1.17). regression and correlation analysis done showed that indicators of entrepreneurial spirit have a positive influence on indicators of marketing practices. The regression model had an R² value of 0.325(F = 9.882, p =0.00) while the entrepreneurial factor of continuously looking  for and exploit new opportunities that generate money for university had positive and significant influence on having  marketing department that handles  marketing programs (r  =0. 321 ) and  on strong believe in customer sovereignty r =0. 382), both significant at 0.01).  Similarly the factor that a firm takes a cautious posture in order to minimize the possibility of making wrong decision has positive and significant influence on a marketing department that handles your marketing programs (r  =0. 445 ) and  on strong believe in customer sovereignty r =0. 472), both significant at 0.01).

Key words: Entrepreneurial spirit, Private Universities, Public Universities, Marketing strategy