Corporate Identity: The Case of the University for Development Studies

Abstract

The new competitive environment within the higher education sector is propelling most Universities to continuously embark on some thoughtful strategic and consistent marketization and planned effort to project their corporate image and reputation. Established a little over two decades ago, the University for Development Studies (UDS) as a higher educational institution is gradually moving from its growth stage to a matured staged. This requires the university to move from a comprehensive institution to a more focused entity. It is therefore extremely crucial to examine what makes the UDS unique and how the community perceive the University as an institution and finally, in what ways key stakeholders or actors can do to improve its corporate identity and reputation. The paper argues that the corporate identity and reputation of the University lie in its Community Development embedded programmes and the blended community-based teaching and learning model. The paper found that 69.84% of the respondents agree that the current corporate reputation of UDS was good. The paper also found several approaches to enhancing the corporate image of the university. These include a well-design marketing strategy; designing market-oriented academic programmes, establish more lecture series, and support quality research publications. Other recommendations for improving the corporate identity of the University are discussed.

Keywords: corporate identity, University, corporate reputation, survey, Ghana