14th October 2024
Introduction:
Holistic marketing is well understood and has now come to stay. Internal marketing (IM) is one of its components. Marketing will succeed only when the entire organisation works together to satisfy the customers. It is futile to promise excellence when the employees are not ready or motivated to provide it. Therefore, the focus of IM is to make employees feel important to the organisation. Hence, management’s engagement in IM is be crucial and critical in aligning the efforts of the organisation’s different departments and motivating all the employees to give their best (Kotler et al., 2022).
Higher education (HE) is a service industry, and all its employees’ efforts need to be aligned with providing excellent educational experiences to the students. In other words, IM plays an essential role in HE. India has become the most populous nation in the world, with a forecast that it will continue to grow for another four decades (Gallup, 2023, p 6); its young people are at the centre of growth and future development and prosperity. Education is a fundamental requirement for growth. Hence, the management of education, notably higher education, becomes significant and influential in determining India’s growth. At the same time, educational institutes’ managements have been under intense scrutiny from several quarters. All people, whether they are customers/students, investors, employers, regulators, and other stakeholders, are not only looking to satisfy their needs but also observing how well the management is responsive to the changing demands of the environment and society. The concept of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) takes root here. In such a scenario, it is prudent to examine the impact of ESG on education. We limit our research to studying the impact of ESG on higher education in India.
The term ESG broadly covers the following:
Environmental: This dimension covers energy efficiency, water management, animal welfare, and adherence to environmental regulations.
Social: This dimension focuses on a company’s relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including employee safety and health, working conditions, diversity, equity and inclusion, conflict resolution, humanitarian efforts, and the impact on customer satisfaction and employee engagement.
Governance: This dimension ensures that a company employs accurate and transparent accounting methods, maintains integrity and diversity in leadership selection, and addresses issues such as bribery and corruption prevention, cybersecurity, privacy practices, and interactions with stakeholders like, internal controls, employees, regulators, and the media. Education serves the greater good by doing what is best for all stakeholders – students, employees, suppliers, the community and shareholders.
Research Gap and Research Problem:
With the emergence of ESG and the unprecedented momentum it has gained, there are heightened expectations for progress, particularly in the environmental front (S&P Global, 2022). With ESG weighing on the management it is apt to study its impact on the management and internal marketing. Since we are confining our study to higher education in India, following are the research questions that we seek to answer.
The research questions of this study are
- Does ESG have any role in internal marketing?
- How does ESG impact internal marketing?
- In the future, how might ESG modify internal marketing? What changes will it bring?
In India, the private sector accounts for 70% of higher education (GoI, 2022a&b). Hence, understanding the management and how they manage higher education becomes important. Therefore, the specific objective that we intend to meet is to understand how in the future ESG will impact the higher education management in India.
Research methodology:
The research design proposed to be employed for the present study is empirical and quantitative. The data will be collected from the faculty, staff employed in higher education across India using a structured questionnaire. ESG constructs that are relevant to the higher education have been identified. The items to measure the above mentioned constructs have been sourced from the earlier studies to ensure reliability and validity issues are taken care of.
Data analysis and results:
The data will be analysed using appropriate tools such as SPSS, AMOS and R as required.
Implications of the Study:
Integrating ESG into marketing is seen indispensable and is seen as forward-thinking. This study will prepare the management in higher education to tackle the future challenges that would arise in view of mandatory implementation of ESG.
References:
Gallup. (2023). Gallup: India Briefing Inside India: World’s Most Populous Nation Looks Ahead. https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/510488/inside-india-world-populous-nation-looks-ahead.aspx
GoI (2022a). Report of Unified District Information on School Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22, Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL), Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India, New Delhi.
GoI (2022b). Report on All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2021-22, Department of Higher Education (DSEL), Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India, New Delhi.
Kotler, P. et al., 2022. Marketing Management. 16th ed. Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd.
McWilliams, A., and, & Siegel, D. S. (2001). Corporate social responsibility: A theory of the firm perspective. Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 117–127.
S&P Global, 2022. Key trends that will drive the ESG agenda in 2022. [Online] S&P Available at: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/key-esg-trends-in-2022 [Accessed 29 August 2024].
Discussion questions:
- Is ESG relevant to higher education?
- In what way ESG is likely to impact higher education?
- How will ESG integrate into internal marketing of any organisation?
